‘We want Mr Zingi-Zingi to tell us which ANC to vote for,’ say Giyani residents ahead of Mbalula’s visit

Roads in bad condition, youth joblesness and a chronic shortage of clean running water will top the list of grievances from the communities of Giyani when ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula delivers a keynote address on the Limpopo leg of the 2019 ANC Manifesto Review in Giyani tomorrow.

Mbalula in Giyani

Mbalula is expected to paint a detailed picture of how the ruling party fared on its commitment to fight the triple challenges of poverty, unemployment and inequality in Limpopo communities since the 2019 national and general elections.

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In 2014, then president Jacob Zuma told 55 Giyani communities from the same venue that they would have fresh drinkable water delivered to their doorsteps in less than three years.

Dubbed the Presidential Giyani Bulk Water Supply project, it was still incomplete nine years later. Its budget ballooned from half a billion rand to a staggering R4.5 billion.

More than four ministers, including the current Water and Sanitation Minister Senzo Mchunu, have been dispatched to oversee the project but none have managed to bring clean running water to Giyani and its surrounding 55 farming communities. The residents of Giyani are still drinking contaminated water 29 years into democracy.

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“We know Mbalula is a good orator and he will come prepared to convince us. But we want to see if he will have enough facts to explain why his government failed to bring water to Giyani,” businessman Patrick Ritshuri said yesterday.

Poverty under ANC government

Ritshuri is the president of the Giyani Business Forum and one of the community businessmen worried about the poor state of his town and persistent poverty in the sprawling villages of Giyani under the ANC-led government.

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“Giyani is a small town with high unemployment. Most youth here are not working. They depend mostly on handouts, odd jobs or selling fruit on the streets. Crime is also high here because our youth are disillusioned about ever getting jobs.

“When Zuma came to Giyani in 2014, he promised us jobs in the bulk water supply project and to provide us with the necessary tools to cultivate the land because it is fertile here. He also promised to create jobs for youth in artwork as we are near Kruger National Park. But nothing came of it.

“So we want Mr Zingi-Zingi to tell us which ANC we must vote for in the upcoming general elections – the ANC that promised us a better life for all in 1994 or the unreliable ANC of empty promises,” said Ritshuri.

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But Phillip Machubeni of Morutji village in Bolobedu defended the ANC, saying: “Our lives have dramatically improved because of the ANC. We now have electricity, tarred roads, free food parcels, free access to better primary healthcare and most of our schools are no-fee schools.”