ALBERTON- As a pensioner from Brackendowns, I would like to make my voice heard. Out of all the possibilities, they want to build a wellness centre at the Brackendowns Centre.
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This has been a central and convenient shopping centre for many years, but now that the owner cannot find shop tenants, he wants to sell it. It would be of great help if some entrepreneur, with the help of state subsidies, could turn it into a shopping centre that will cater strictly for SASSA pensioners.
Groceries, a medical suit, an optometrist and a chemist, priced to suite us. Most people don’t have the slightest idea what it means to rely on R1 400 per month. All shops try to assist us with Pensioners Day, however, we can’t always participate in all the specials they offer as they fall on days when we have not received our grant and most specials consist of non essential goods or luxuries.
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Rather spend your advertising budget to lower your prices. We, the pensioners, have not paid our dues all our life just to be treated like lepers and beggars in our old age. Now they want to build a wellness centre to help us cope. A very humane gesture to extract more money out of us. A place where we are respected and treated with humanity and dignity would be more appropriate.
People in SA spend their lives paying into a pension fund, yet our money is used to build shopping centres and office blocks. The very same investors use our money to invest for their own gain, draw a fat salary every month, give themselves huge bonuses and, at the end of the day, make us, the main contributor to their wealth, the poor individuals who have to rely on the dregs thrown to us.
Please forgive us for being bitter. Taxis are exempt from e-toll. Why not the pensioners? I could go on and on. As you can see, all our life we have been paying to benefit others. Now we are being treated like second-hand garbage at the time when we need help the most. We are the knowledge and backbone of this country. Just because we are old and not allowed to work anymore does not mean we are useless.
We, the pensioners, have no say. Is it because we can’t hurt anybody when we ask? Unlike the unions who can call a strike until they get what the want, we don’t have a union and, even if we had, we have no money to sustain such an institution.
Maybe if we blocked the M1 with wheelchairs and stretchers they would listen? No, we would be thrown in jail. We are dispensable and useless. For those who are involved in this rezoning, rethink what you are doing and rather direct your efforts into more constructive ventures.
Stop trying to help those who you, with your actions, have put in a situation that you have created. Your idea of a wellness centre is only for self enrichment.
Come on all pensioners, let’s stand together. I am willing to receive your mail or call. Anything is possible if we stand together for what is right. But again, with no participation this plea will also fall on deaf ears. What a sad democracy.
Heinz Stammer
072 187 5584 / heinz.stammer@gmail.com
