Ward 97 Councillor Jaco Engelbrecht responds to the ANC’s allegations

Ward 97 Councillor Jaco Engelbrecht writes: It is apparent from the letter by Phapano Phashe that the ANC is already in election campaigning mode for the 2016 local government elections. Their urgency is likely attributable to the poor performance by the ANC in Johannesburg in the elections of 7 May this year and the very likely possibility that the ANC will lose the City of Johannesburg to the DA in 2016.

I wish to put it on record that I have had absolutely no communication from the ANC branch in Ward 97 to discuss or to collectively work on any matter whatsoever, including the plight of the poor in any informal settlement in the area. I invite the ANC to provide proof of such attempts.

The matter of the Taylor Road settlement is one that is currently before the courts. The owner of the land obtained a court order some years ago for the eviction of the people currently living on the property. In terms of an earlier judgment in the matter of Blue Moonlight Properties 39 (Pty) Ltd v Occupiers of Saratoga Avenue and Another (Blue Moonlight case), it is the responsibility of the City of Johannesburg to find alternative accommodation for people who are to be evicted from private property or city owned property. Instead of complying with various instructions by the court in the Taylor Road case to abide by the precedent established in the Blue Moonlight case, the Department of Housing has actively and intentionally sidestepped their responsibility in this regard and either challenged or ignored the court orders. In the meantime, the people of Taylor Road are left to somehow survive in conditions where they have no sanitation facilities and no certainty about their future.

It is worth noting that the attorney representing the owner of the Taylor Road land is also not aware of any attempts by the ANC to mediate in the matter.

The Ward 97 committee, on which serves several members of the ANC branch, including the chairperson of said branch, has noted the lack of public amenities and services and has undertaken to do what it takes to ensure that the necessary engagements with the relevant government departments do in fact occur. It is therefore quite surprising to note in the letter that I am seen as a councillor who is not interested in finding collective solutions. It is doubtful that the author of the letter actually consulted with the branch chair before writing this particular piece of diatribe.

Read Phapano Phashe’s letter about Jaco Engelbrecht here.

It is of course well known by all South Africans that the frustrations around the lack of service delivery is directly attributable to the disaster that is ANC cadre deployment. The necessity to perform is simply absent when your position within a department is secured by your connections within the ruling party. The Department of Education has not, according to officials within the Department, built a single public school within the Roodepoort area since 1994. This is despite the sharp increase in the population of Roodepoort. The truth is that, after Roodepoort was incorporated into the City of Johannesburg Metro as part of the ANC government’s paranoid obsession to destroy well performing opposition municipalities (as they are now doing with Midvaal), it lost interest in providing anything more but the most basic services – and that usually only with much urging by the public and councillors.

The ANC has no desire “to collectively work to solve the problems of the people”. It is interested only in dividing and ruling. It has nothing more to offer the people of South Africa other than fear and distrust and it is the mandate of the Ward 97 ANC branch to spread such fear and distrust in our area. But the people are not fooled. The election results of 7 May is proof of this and the result of the 2016 local elections will confirm this decisively.