May 28, 2002
By THOMAS THALE
ON a cold winter night, they came by bus, taxi and even on foot. Some 500 people, mostly black, mostly poor, crammed into Roodepoort City Hall in Johannesburg's far west, in the hope of having their problems attended to by the city's leaders.
As the mayoral motorcade made its way through the gates, the crowds watched in envy. One after the other, luxury cars, some chauffer driven, parked and offloaded dignitaries, under the watchful eye of bodyguards and the police.
This was the scene on Thursday evening as members of the mayoral committee went on a roadshow to meet residents of Roodepoort. The initiative was part of the council's drive to reach out to communities and give people a platform to directly air their grievances, whilst at the same time communicating the city's plans and initiatives. In the words of Executive Mayor Amos Masondo: "This is an attempt to involve people in decision making". The mayor and his committee hold these meetings each month. They have already visited Orange Farm, Alexandra, Soweto and Diep Meadow.
On that cold Thursday night, it was the turn of Roodepoort. Before anyone was allowed in the city hall, police with sniffer dogs combed the area. Then hundreds of people, dressed in their winter coats, shuffled into the building. Elderly women, many wearing doeks or berets, sat side by side with young men who had taken off their hats and caps as a sign of respect. The hall was fully packed. Most people came from the informal settlements in and around Roodepoort. A few white faces sat awkwardly through the proceedings, straining to follow the deliberations, which were conducted mostly in vernacular languages.
The councillors had just returned from another meeting with representatives of the Roodepoort Chamber of Commerce and were still dressed in formal suits as they ascended the stage. One by one, they were introduced and they stood up to acknowledge the accompanying applause.
The mayor's address was brief, but wide-ranging. He talked about the need to put aside political differences and focus on the delivery of services. He went on to outline the projects currently underway, with the Alexandra Renewal project occupying pride of place. He talked about the 2030 plan and the council's determination to rejuvenate the inner city. The mayor highlighted the plans and programmes of the council to turn Jo'burg into a World Class African city. Whilst it provided an overview of council policies, the speech was not tailored to address local needs.
As the mayor sat down, the master of ceremonies invited questions. The mood in the hall changed, and became electric. Members of the audience stood in single file, waiting patiently for their turn to pose questions.
A young man took the microphone and delivered a short lecture on the failure of the council to provide infrastructure in informal settlements. "Since we voted for you, you have never visited us. This is the first time you come here to listen to our plight. We have no water or electricity. We don't sleep well because our shacks are cold. What I want to know is, what are you going to do to help us?"
With this, he had set the tone for the rest of the proceedings. Virtually all participants prefaced their questions with insights of their own on how the council should address the problems facing them.
"My name is Mngadi Mabankwe from plot 81 in the Princess squatter camp. What I want to know from you Mr Mayor, is whether Princess has been proclaimed as a township or it is just a transient camp. I'm saying this because there is no development in the area. We have to walk for more than 1km to get to the nearest toilet. All we get are promises but no action". This input triggered a thunderous applause from the appreciative audience. On the stage, feet shuffled uneasily.
"I just want to know what the criterion is for improving informal settlements. Just what do you look for?" said one Edward Mothusi emphatically.
The call for the upgrading of informal settlements became a common refrain for the rest of the evening. Time and time again, councillors were invited to visit the squatter camps to witness for themselves the appalling conditions under which people lived.
With no agenda to guide the deliberations, many spoke from the heart and their inputs were impassioned, though not always to the point.
A young man took the microphone and greeted the mayor mock deferentially, before launching a tirade against the council's policies. He prefaced his question with a little lecture on the manifest failure of the government's Gear policy, calling on the councillors to jettison the policy. "You must stop Gear. We are suffering like this because of capitalism. Please Mr Mayor, stop this policy now. Poor countries suffer because of this globalisation thing." As he regurgitated slogans gleaned from Marxist text books, the audience giggled appreciatively.
Councillor Strike Ralegoma, Executive Mayor Amos Masondo and Councillor Brian Hlongwa
The council's response was led by Councillor Strike Ralegoma, responsible for safety and security in the city. He took to the podium like an experienced campaigner, displaying his oratorical flair in eloquent Setswana to appeal to the predominantly Tswana audience. He adopted a firm stance, vowing to clamp down heavily on land invaders. Ralegoma placed the blame for the suffering of squatters on unscrupulous landlords who spearheaded land invasions, collected rent from the squatters and disappeared without providing any infrastructure.
"You paid R300 rent, where did that money go to?" he asked rhetorically. The audience nodded in agreement, as if admitting that they had been taken for suckers. His input was met with awkward silence from the otherwise good-humoured audience.
The burden of responding to questions on the provision of infrastructure fell on the shoulders of Parks Tau, the youthful councillor for development planning. He reminded the community of their responsibility for keeping their environment clean. Speaking firmly but eloquently, he described land invasions as both illegal and indefensible.
"Even though we are ready to address your problems, we can't take responsibility for people who engage in illegal activities. You must take responsibility for your lives. Even God helps those who help themselves" Tau said firmly. Many in the audience nodded in agreement. "Where must we go then?" a voice interjected, triggering whistles and ululations from the audience.
It was now time for the second round of questions and numerous hands shot up. One Thulani Skhosana, from Mandelaville, complained about the poor conditions at the settlement. The master of ceremonies interrupted the speaker to remind the audience not to repeat questions that had already been asked.
Barbara Hall, a representative of the business sector in the Roodepoort area, accused councillors of failing to respond to written complaints about the deteriorating conditions in informal settlements, before taking up cudgels on behalf of squatters. "I want to know just why the council allows arrears to accumulate. I know of one business which has accumulated a R60 000 in arrears over the past six months.
One school girl told the heart rending story of her disrupted schooling. "I come from the Sol Plaatje squatter camp. I'm one of the people who were removed from Mandelaville in Diepkloof. Many of us have dropped out of school because we don't have money to travel to Diepkloof every day. It is sad to see many children not going to school. The nearest high school is far away in Dobsonville, and it will still be expensive for us to travel there. What are we to do?" She asked, using her shrill voice to good dramatic effect.
Even the few white faces in the audience asked questions relating to the state of informal settlements. The school girl's concerns were echoed by George Radcliff, a member of the Roodepoort Community Policing Forum, who pleaded for immediate intervention from the council. Radcliff's opening remarks "I won't say Amandla because I'm not a comrade," left the audience giggling. He then continued, "I've written many letters to the council but to date I've not received any response. I've travelled through all the squatter camps in this area, and, in all of them, there is no street lighting and there are no street names. People living in these areas are not safe at all. I've tried to get support from the authorities to help victims of crime. We can't just sit back when school kids are sitting at home. I need your support to improve the safety of these people." His input was met with appreciative clapping and ululation.
It was Brian Hlongwa's turn to display his skills of elocution. For ten minutes, he held his audience spell bound, using call and response to drive his points home. "It's not us who took your money, is it?" "No" the audience responded in unison. When he exhausted the political theme, he resorted to statistics to deliver his final blow. He reminded the audience that Johannesburg has 89 informal settlements, of which 21 are in the Roodepoort area. He did this to make the audience appreciate the magnitude of the problem facing the council. "We are working on a mechanism to alleviate the problems highlighted here tonight. Our attempts are however, hampered by people who sell their government-subsidised homes and then move back into informal settlements. Some people have identified your poverty as a business avenue. Some of you sell their shacks and move on to seek other plots". This last point went well with the listeners who applauded energetically.
Despite the gravity of the issues under discussion, the meeting was not without its lighter moments. One speaker, who only introduced herself as Emily, protested against the use of township youngsters to run AIDS awareness campaigns at the Vlakfontein informal settlement, near Leratong hospital in Kagiso. "We are treated as illiterates, even though many of us have matric. We are not given any responsibility whatsoever. It seems as if the council thinks the only things that are good for us are condoms which are distributed regularly," she complained bitterly. Another speaker left the audience bemused when he implored councillors to leave their comfortable jobs and go and work as farm labourers. "Ja, I tell you, go and work in the farms and come back and tell me what it was like."
Councillor Hlongwa also raised giggles when he related how some people misused rubbish bins supplied by the council. "We give you 240 litre bins and what do you do with them? Some of you say, 'this bin is too beautiful, I'll use it to brew traditional beer', others call them cooler bags and use them to store liquor," Hlongwa said to renewed bursts of merriment.
The questions kept coming hard and fast. In the end, the chairperson had to say "enough." Many were left disappointed because they couldn't ask their questions, but it was already 19:30 and the meeting had been scheduled to end at 19:00.
The final word went to the mayor. He started by establishing a rapport with his audience with the war cry "Amandla!" The audience responded with some enthusiasm - saying "Ngawethu!" With his fatherly demeanour, the mayor gently castigated and counselled, imploring communities to blow the whistle on criminals and to desist from invading land or degrading the environment. His tone restored order to the proceedings. In the end, he undertook to pay visits to the squatter camps. His closing remarks were met with mixed, cautious applause.
Judging from the response of the audience, the meeting did achieve results, despite some shortcomings. One couple, Peter and Barbara Gore of Florida, welcomed the council's initiative, although they protested that they could not follow most of the proceedings. "No interpreter was provided and the meeting was too big and one sided. Only issues affecting squatter camps were addressed and the meeting was not well advertised in our area. I also want to know if there will be a report back."
Selebaleng Moiloa of Vlakfontein welcomed the presence of the mayoral committee. "They must come here and listen to us. Only then will they understand the kind of problems we are faced with," she said.
It was time for the audience to make the hazardous journey back home, made more difficult by the absence of taxis at this time of night. But there were few complaints. Meeting councillors clearly gives communities a sense that they can put their concerns on the agenda and take councillors to task.
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