By Luvuyo Mjekula
Some residents of Ward 2 in Joza recently threatened to halt a road-repair project in the area, claiming they were excluded by the powers that be.
Led by local leaders of ActionSA, the small group of residents demonstrated with placards at the site last week, threatening to shut down the project and demanding the presence of ward councillor, Ramie Xonxa.
An angry Blondie Mdoko, a contractor and owner of Buhlumuzi Trading (Pty) Ltd in Ward 2, said she has been out of business for the past three years because she has been excluded from previous projects and the current one. “I am a contractor here in Ward 2 and I am rising up because contracts of Ward 2 are being taken over by outsiders.”
“We want a stop to this project so that proper procedures are followed and they give children from this ward the work. We will stop this project but we need the ward councillor here,” Mdoko said.
Nomathemba Pokile, a Ward 2 resident, said: “My heart is sore because our children are unemployed and they would have loved to get an opportunity to work on this project.”
ActionSA youth chairperson in Makana, Anelisa Mxube, said: “What troubles me is that the youth of Ward 2 resort to crime and alcohol abuse because the jobs they were supposed to get are given to people from outside. As an ActionSA youth chairperson in Makana, I am against the project being completed without my youth getting opportunities. I blame the ward councillor. People must stand up and fight for their Makhanda.”
Buhle Mdoko, regional chairperson of ActionSA’s youth forum in Sarah Baartman, explained ‘jobs and the economy’ is one of the party’s seven themes in terms of its strategies and objectives to bring about change. “We look at employment, people who are on contracts and those who are not employed at all and ask how they are affected knowing that the contract will come to an end at a certain point? And those who are unemployed – how do they live?
“We have a vision for this country – we want people to be empowered in their businesses and create jobs, so that people have an income and dependence on social grants decreases.”
She called on Xonxa to provide answers for the exclusion of locals from the road-repair project. “Young people are educated, but are not employed. People want answers.”
However, Xonxa rejected allegations of exclusion. He said it was not true that no Ward 2 residents were employed in the project. In fact, he said there were no less than five Ward 2 residents working on the project. “But because the project does not cover only Ward 2, people from other wards like wards 3, 6 and 9, have to be employed. And that is how the project steering committee was formed.”
On interviewing some of the workers at the site, Grocott’s Mail learned that some were residents of Ward 2.
