The Zosa Street ‘ISSUE’
www.MyPE.co.za: With
reference to the editorial in The Herald of July 30 (Housing
still hot
issue in Bay) suggests that the ANC and the DA were “feuding over who
should shoulder the blame for the delay in providing housing for the
people”.
Surely the answer is obvious? If the DA had the power to upgrade the
slums of Zosa Street, it would have done so when it won the ward a
decade ago. The bottom line is that, for 10 years, the ruling party consistently ignored the ward councillor’s repeated
appeals for the Zosa Street community to be decently housed.
That those appeals have finally been noted is welcome, if overdue.
One needs to ask, though, whether this sudden spurt of enthusiasm by
the divided ANC for the well-being of the people of Zosa
Street has anything to do with next year’s municipal
elections.
For the record, the Zosa Street Action Committee phoned me the day
Mayor Wylie and his team – many of whom had crept out of the woodwork
after being silent for so long on the Zosa Street issue – and asked me
to attend the Mayor’s recent vote-catching brick-laying ceremony. I
declined, as I did not want to be accused of gate-crashing the event to
score political points.
The people of Zosa Street well know the background leading to the
current upgrading. To coin a phrase: “You can fool some of the people
some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the
time.”
I look forward to seeing this long-suffering, dignified community
settling into the new homes the ruling party could have given them
years ago.
DA councillor Terry Herbst
Port Elizabeth
Related: Petrol
bombing mires Zosa Street progress event.
Port Elizabeth Budget Accommodation
Go to:MyPE.co.za
