Staff reporter
Welkom – The community of Hennenman between Venterburg and Welkom has adopted insurgent citizenship known as collective violence and the struggle for a better place in the new South Africa.
This follows a series of events of frustrations caused by a lack of service delivery over a very long period with no help or attempts to assist. Mangaung has had similar protests as well as Winburg, Welkom, and other areas in the province over water, unemployment, corruption, and maladministration.
An elderly woman was attacked by nyaope boys and suffered serious injuries.
Speaking exclusively to Step UP SA news, Molifi Mosala explains why they are gatvol with the government.
“Hennenman has always been overlooked as far as service delivery is concerned and we can’t keep quiet any longer. We don’t have services including basics like a fully functioning police station, at times it closes for a week now where are supposed to get help?
We are closing R70 and there will not be any movement to and from Welkom and Venterburg until the Premier comes here.
Instead of us being happy when it rains we become sad because our house floods in Basilreed, Motseki, and Mphe Fela.’
We also struggle with ambulances and it poses a serious challenge when our elders are sick.”
Asked if they have engaged the municipality he said.
“Last year our Executive Mayor, Thanduxolo Khalipa came with his disaster management team and that was the end of it. The next thing we see is him having imbizos in other areas but he never comes here.
The same goes for our councilors, they never help and they only call meetings when they talk about jobs knowing service delivery or lack thereof will not be asked.
We have so many problems I might leave some important things but another thing is two women were raped, an elder woman was attacked by nyaope boys with hammers and we don’t get help from the police. We are forced to capture and arrest drug dealers in Hennenman.”
We asked him about a shack that burnt down.
“That’s a sad story, the firefighters only came after two hours and the fire had destroyed everything. We had a meeting with Brig Mojafi and he promised to come back to us after two weeks, we still waiting.”
Below is a picture of a police station with doors closed and a community member could not be helped.
The protest will start from midnight until midnight Wednesday and we hope it will be a peaceful protest.
Free State has had many protests over service delivery but the two at top of everyone’s mind are the Ficksburg and Mangaung protests because lives were lost.
The people in Ficksburg have explored non-violent methods to resolve their service delivery needs/demands. It is reported that on 29 March 2011, a memo listing 29 demands was submitted to the municipality, but nothing was done until the second protest on the 13th of April 2011. Andries Tatane led the first protest and there were no reported acts of violence. it is reported that they were only two local police officers who were monitoring the march and everything was done peacefully. (During the second protest, Andries Tatane was assaulted by 8 police officers and shot. He died at the scene and the attack was captured on camera, and later repeatedly shown on national television). Andries Tatane was a committed and dedicated community leader. He was involved in various community projects, including tutoring Grade 12 learners in Maths and English. Politically, Tatane left the ANC to join Cope in 2008.
At the time of his death, he was a leader of MCC (Meqheleng Concerned Citizens), a non-political community movement that organized a march to the municipality against poor service delivery such as lack of water supply and poor sewerage system. Tatane’s death sparked uproar from political parties, activists, and trade union leaders. The protestors in Ficksburg were singing popular anti-apartheid songs. One of the songs that the protestors sang was “Senzenina, Senzenina” (Translation: “What have we done? What have we done?”).
Many participants narrated that the police exacerbated the situation because the protestors randomly started to attack public facilities, including shops owned by foreign nationals. In Ficksburg, after Tatane’s death, angry community members set alight two municipality buildings, including the library. Other community members started to throw stones at the police…one of the informants said, “They attacked shops owned by the Pakistanis because one of the police officers accused to have killed Mr. Tatane is Indian. So all the Pakistanis look like Indians”. It is reported that more than 50 protestors were arrested and released on bail after two to three days.
Go to Ficksburg now, it’s worse than when Tatane was alive.
Brig Mojafi and Matjhabeng Local Municipality Executive Mayor, Thanduxolo Khalipa could not be reached for their comments.
If you have news or tips please email us at news@stepupsanews.co.za or Whatsapp at 0685000246
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