THE African National Congress (ANC) will win the elections on 29 May.
These were the words of Fortune Mathabathe, the ANC spokesman in Hammanksraal on Friday, 19 April, as hundreds of job seekers marched to the North West Development Cooperation in Babelegi Industrial Park to demand jobs.
Mathabathe said the organisation was not marching for the first time and denied that it was electioneering.
He said there was no need to lie or bribe people with jobs, therefore people only came in such numbers because the ANC had made an appeal.
“We don’t have to lie to anyone to attract attention, our p
eople will always respond to the ANC's call. We are just exercising our constitutional mandate here as the structure of the ANC in Hammanskraal. We are making sure that we mobilise the communities behind the ANC banner, but at the same time we are repositioning the ANC at the centre of the communities' struggles,” Mathabathe said.
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"There is no other organisation, not even the Economic Freedom Fighters, Action SA or the Democratic Alliance, that can mobilise the people of Hammanskraal in these numbers better than we can. So, the people who say the ANC is campaigning are just looking for attention. Our people are hungry, our people are looking for opportunities and we demand accountability from the people we have elected," he added.
Mathabathe said the issue of whether the Babelegi Industrial Park falls under the North West Development Cooperation, even though it is in Gauteng, needs urgent clarification.
“Both the North West and Gauteng need to champion the development of the industrial park. When Parks Tau was MEC was involved in this matter and tried to resolve the issue. Now he is a deputy minister, which means that government is slow in implementing the agreement between the two provinces,” he said
.
George Matjila, the ANC Tshwane secretary, told the protesters that the demonstration is aimed at government leaders to remind them that they will be given another chance to vote in favour of the ANC to ensure that the Babelegi issue is resolved.
"These factories were all in operation before 1994 and it cannot be that we have so many unemployed people after the incarceration of so many people. This is not a march against the captains of industry, it is a march against our own government to tell them that we are giving them a chance to find solutions,” Matjila said.
Two of the job seekers, Thato Masengane and Dimakatso Mphuti, said they have completed matric a year ago and hoped that this march would bring positive results.
They said they had heard people saying Premier Panyanza Lesufi was coming to give them jobs. Since he was not present, they hoped those present would honour their promises.
“We have come with our CVs and hope they will not be thrown away because we really need jobs badly as some of us were raised by single parents,” they said.
The deputy chairwoman of the South African National Civic Organisation (Sanco) in Gauteng, Portia Mokwena, said the march was a process and she only hoped for positive results. She said they need to come back this time and be able to report back to their communities as people are hungry and unemployed.
Kate Mabalane, an employee of the North West Development Cooperation, confirmed that the issues raised will be forwarded to the relevant department.
