The content on this page is not written by Polity.org.za, but is supplied by third parties. This content does not constitute news reporting by Polity.org.za.

From early this evening, the community of SST and the Progressive Youth Movement (PYM) in the Khayelitsha township of Cape Town has been in the midst of a mass action in front of the home of Amos Nkomeni, the ANC ward councilor for ward 93 in the City of Cape Town. Councillor Nkomeni’s response to the community march to his house was arrogant and dismissive. Instead of responding to the demand for an end to the degrading and dehumanising bucket system imposed by the City of Cape Town in the absence of decent sanitation at SST. As a result of the bucket system, many people at SST fall sick because of the fumes from the chemicals used in the bucket system. Hundreds of toddlers, young children and the elderly have been infected with TB and others have constant diarrhea. The people of SST are angry and fed up with the bucket system and with being victims of winter floods which turn many of the shacks in which people live into floating debris causing disease. Councillor Nkomeni has done nothing to help in order to get proper sanitation. Instead, Councillor Nkomeni has consistently ignored and undermined the people of SST and their pleas. He has been unaccountable. Most people at SST do not know his face. Many atimes the SST community has invited him to meetings. He has failed to attend these meetings. His arrogance has made him untouchable.

The SST community has now left Nkomeni’s house and is continuing with a night protest at Lansdowne road.

At SST, thousands of people stay in inhuman conditions not because they want to but because of the négligence from government. No one wants to stay in a shack, no one wants to stay on awetland and no one wants to use communal toilets and water taps. But all these are sustained by the policies and budgets passed by the ANC and DA governments. The misery, squalor and dire living conditions of the community of SST convince the PYM to conclude that the ANC national government, the DA Western Cape provincial government and the DA-governed City of Cape Town are all failing to deliver services to poor and working class communities. Instead, these two political parties promote policies that serve elites in Constantia, Camps Bay and other formerly white suburbs of Cape Town. The same when it comes to their pro-rich economic policies.

For many years now, the City of Cape Town has failed to build adequate numbers of decent houses for poor and working people in Khayelitsha and elsewhere in the city. Instead, its policies and budget allocations have consistently maintained high-class suburbs withover-capitalised infrastructure, while townships remain slums with deteroriating infrastructure. The money for housing has been underspent. To make things worse, the City has returned money earmarked for housing back to the National Treasury.

The situation in SST is a reality for millions of other poor and working people in South Africa. Poor and working class communities South Africa face social, economic and service delivery crises on a daily basis. The proof of this is the large number of daily service delivery protests in the country.

Tonight’s action at SST is not a once-off action. It builds from the 27 April 2012 PYM-led march to the Khayelitsha Administration office of City of Cape Town during which the SSTcommunity demanded an end of the bucket system, decent sanitation, decent houses and jobs. The City’s response was not convincing. Over the last weekend, the SST community has continued with this struggle through protests and barricades at Lansdowne road. Tonight’s action and the ongoing protests at Lansdowne Road are an expression of the community’s anger and frustration at the City’s inadequate response and an unaccountable councilor. These actions are also a start of sustained mobilisation to change these conditions and for ordinary people to effectively claim and assert their rights to decent service delivery and public goods against the violation of these by ANC and DA policies.

The PYM is an affiliate of the Democratic Left Front (DLF).