I am not usually one to write letters to the editor nor pen opined pieces trying to raise a point or influence the social discourse.
But the article (CV, November 13-15, page 1) by Phuti Raletjena, got me thinking that he was either influenced by the shoddy scribing of Poloko Tau or missed a big chunk of ANC deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa’s visit to Polokwane over a week ago.
No amount of spin can undo the ugly scene involving a drunkard who was evidently intoxicated as captured in one of the dailies during our campaign. But to reduce what was largely a high magnitude door-to-door campaign to an incident in Seshego, defeats logic.
The deputy president was on a mission to touch base with the people of Limpopo in Westenburg and Seshego. None of the reports make mention of the successful campaign that was carried out by the deputy president in all these areas.
No journalist bothered, even an iota, to report to the people of South Africa about a hooligan who has chucked a poor woman out of an RDP house in the Westenburg section 16 area, to convert it into a rental house.
The poor woman has been made to stay in a makeshift tent while this criminal claims to have bought the house that the poor woman stayed in for the past 13 years.
She had been allocated the house because both the department of housing and the municipality had failed to trace its rightful owner. The phenomenon of untraceable beneficiaries is huge in the low cost housing sector.
Reports say this hooligan’s modus operandi is to buy RDP houses from their owners and convert them into rental houses. The police and the department are aware of this and an investigation has been instituted.
The deputy president visited the family and was informed that the leadership of the local branches of the ANC are on top of the situation and have sought alternative permanent accommodation for the family.
Of course the media is not a PR machine for either the ANC or government, but this selective reporting leaves much to be desired. It is gobsmacking because there seems to be an underlying agenda; to undermine the ANC’s efforts of reaching out to its constituencies.
None of the reports bothers to tell the people of South Africa that the deputy president managed to meet and greet over 1 000 potential ANC voters in all these areas. There is not even a single report indicating that pandemonium nearly broke out at the Seshego New Complex when throngs of people, of a voting age, wanted to take pictures with Cde Ramaphosa. All this happened with members of the media there.
A reported 178 000 people throughout the province managed to register during the weekend of November 9 to 10.
The ANC remains grateful to the people of Limpopo and attributes all this to the enormous door-to-door campaigns that have been set off as part of its electioneering endeavours.
Compared to the targeted 150 000 people, the achieved number is a major leap forward.
Phuti Lekganyane works for the ANC Caucus in the Limpopo Legislature. He writes this in his personal capacity.
