A Car is Torched and the Community Weeps

In what is suspected to be a politically motivated incident, the ANC sub-regional chairperson Siya Phololo’s bakkie went up in flames in the wee hours of Thursday morning. This follows a fortnight of intermittent protests on the back of employment to the SANRAL road reconstruction projects due to get underway along the N1 highway near Colesberg.

By Wednesday evening rioters were burning tyres along the busy highway forcing a diversion of traffic. Despite various community meetings aimed at alleviating the standoff between the community, civic organisations, ANC and Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) in as far as the criteria of employment to these projects, a mutually agreeable solution has not been reached.

The ANC sub-regional chairperson’s bakkie burnt to a shell. Image: Supplied

Since last week the town has been a hive of protest with riot police from de Aar being called in to quell the uprising. On Thursday morning, an urgent meeting was called at the Lowryville community hall aimed at resolving these issues. However, this soon deteriorated to the commonplace name-calling, finger-pointing and obstinate inability to see eye to eye. There were close shaves between the warring groups, with police occassionally stepping in to deter physical confrontations.

A massive community turnout outside the Lowryville community hall. Image: Supplied.

According to EFF provincial member Simphiwe Mrwarwaza the deadlock is rooted in the ANC’s alleged move to have only people from its lists employed to one of the new construction companies. As a result, says Mrwarwaza, the 50/50 offer they’d extended to the ANC is no longer on the table. Their unwavering demand now is that all employment be done through the shuffling of identity documents.

The ANC sub-regional chairperson, Siyabulela Phololo, has since opened a case with the SA Police Service. Although our attempts for a comment went ignored, he did address members of his constituency asking them to exercise restraint and to let the law take its course.

Umsobomvu sub-regional chairperson, Siyabulela Phololo, addresses community members. Image: Supplied.

According to an ex-councillor, the central issue here is political: if you have the numbers, as the ANC does in Council, your will wish to exercise your will. “It has [always] been like that,” he educates eParkeni. Meaning, he goes on, that of all the roughly 440 people who’d be employed to the various projects, the ANC would have the lion’s share. Because the ANC had at one of the various community meetings conceded to employ five individuals through “shuffling,” this would mean around a whopping 435 (98%) of the employed people would come from the ruling party.

This is what has seemingly driven a wedge between the opposing entities and put paid to any hope of them ever reaching an amicable solution.

Unfortunately, the upshot of this is that when the political power games have been played, nobody will really win, least of all the community.

Scenes like these have come to corrupt Colesberg’s peaceful nature. Image: Supplied.

Desperate for employment, they have been caught up in a dire situation where some could be seen wielding pangas, tyres and ready to trade blows with their fellow man. Under the scorching sun, they have marched – some on empty stomachs and worn-out shoes – doing their bidding for this or that grouping. The dust had barely settled when the construction companies – who were a last hope to a decent meal and new Christmas clothes for the kids of the unemployed – figured this was way beyond them and subsequently resolved to defer the matter to their superiors.

As things stand, the projects have seemingly been halted indefinitely. The economic relief that they were meant to bring about remains elusive for those desperate individuals who were seemingly prepared to brawl and main for a shot at a job. Ultimately, the violence helped nobody. The community continues to choke under the stranglehold of unemployment; poverty, its cousin, chips away at their dignity and the powers that be continue to bicker in the ivory towers of power.

The EFF has distanced itself from the torching of the bakkie and no arrests have been made.

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