‘The EFF cares for us whites,’ Bredell residents put their faith in red berets

The EFF has moved in where other parties have lapsed on their promises, and the red berets are doing it without fanfare.

Publicity stunts are reserved for rumbunctious political tangoing. On the ground, it seems to be a different story.

Suprise suprise

A surprise visit by The Citizen to an informal settlement in Bredell, Ekurhuleni, revealed dozens of overalled EFF members cleaning up, fixing up and helping out residents who are often at the bottom of anyone’s charitable agenda.

It was on Lulu de Beer’s plot, an EFF ward councillor candidate in a local by-election, where about 200 South Africans, black and white, live together in a mini-shantytown.

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A 70-something Charon Uys, who has been a resident at Lulu’s Place for five years, said EFF members descended on the property several months ago to start clean-up operations and help repair shacks and huts.

She said: “While other parties just pass through during voter registration and election campaigns, the EFF decided to include us in their efforts – and they never left.”

Uys said she voted for the first time in her life in 2021’s local government elections. She voted for the DA but said it was a mistake.

“When the DA took over Ekurhuleni, we never heard from them again. My next vote, and the vast majority of everyone living here, will be for the EFF next time. They see us, they hear us, and they do not care about race. Just about poor people.”

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Lockdown woes

It’s not the first time The Citizen visited Lulu de Beer’s plot. Two years ago, we reported on the community, hit hard by lockdown, and how De Beer takes in society’s forgotten people, offering a patch of land to call home.

Families pay rent, but only if they can afford it. She gets occasional donations and De Beer and her husband fund whatever they can to subsidise the destitute.

Gert and Sandra Havenga celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary recently and have been residents at Lulu’s place for 18 years.

He called her “an angel” and said that had it not been for De Beer, a broken social development system would have swallowed, and likely spat out, every resident there.

Havenga greets fellow residents with a raised fist and “Amandla Awethu” crossed the lips of yet another unlikely EFF supporter.

He dons an EFF cap with pride, and assigned future votes to EFF commander-in-chief Julius Malema, too. De Beer’s husband, Werner Cloete, was dressed in a bright red EFF T-shirt. He said the red berets have been immensely helpful, and that members of the Lulu’s Place community all signed up to the party’s community service programme.

“We all get into our overalls and tackle other areas for cleanup operations, every week.” This week, it was informal settlement Marikana’s turn.

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‘Mistake voting for the DA’

“They don’t just make promises, they roll up their sleeves and walk their talk.” Cloete said the EFF’s support inspired his wife to become a candidate and added: “Our waste hadn’t been collected for months, but the reds started carting it away and cleared the giant trash problem we had.

“I can’t say the same for the DA, who want our support, but only remember us every five years.” De Beer said that EFF members often arrive with food, hot meals and when Havenga celebrated his birthday earlier in the year, they brought him cake.

“They even take us to the clinic; the elderly that live here. I haven’t seen kindness like this from a political party before.”

Lulu’s Place is not without sin. The property’s electricity was cut after alleged unpaid bills and fiddling with supply was stopped.

There’s no money to pay for services. Cloete has a plan: “There are collapsed boreholes we’d like to repair; we’d like to get everyone off the grid and install solar.

“That’s our big project right now, to raise funds to make this happen, while at the same time, get money in to help people survive,” Cloete said.

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The Wendy houses that Cloete built two years ago now house several families. He plans to build more when there’s money.

Across the dirt strip from Charon’s quarters, a cynical neighbour said that she did not like the EFF descending on their living space.

To her, it’s just another political party soliciting votes and need to prove themselves several times over, before she’ll accept them.

She’d had enough of parties long on promises and short on delivery, and named the ANC and the DA as culprits.

Politicians lie, said another resident who pointed out that the EFF started helping out long before a by-election in the area, and well before De Beer became a candidate.

Speaker Nthabiseng Tshivenda previously said poverty has no colour, and the EFF are showing this, without inviting the world to see . They just do it. – news@citizen.co.za