The Manenberg Safety Forum believes the Western Cape Governments’ plans to improve Manenberg is not in the favour of the local community but rather a gimmick in the lead up to the 2016 elections. The forum’s Rugshanda Pascoe says that the organisation’s stance has always been that the local government does not talk “with” Manenberg residents but “to” them.

“We are not supporting what the Premier has said. We have been fighting in the steering committee about what they want to implement. They come with their premeditated plans. Until the Premier and the Mayor comes to our community and walks our streets to understand what our needs are, then we can talk,” Pascoe explained.

Pascoe said she took City planning officials on a walk-about in the area, to show them the challenges of residents, challenges which she says have been in existence since the establishment of Manenberg during the apartheid era.

“I told the city planning officials that these flats need to be demolished and new homes need to be built for our people. We cannot live like this. Here are people who are living in run-down homes. We showed them what Manenberg looks like today. Manenberg needs to be turned on its head. The city hasn’t learned anything from their experience with the upgrading. That was also a decision made from the top down. Now our people sit with broken homes,” Pascoe added.

During a press briefing on Wednesday, Premier Helen Zille led a group of Western Cape government ministers as they unveiled “historic” plans to improve conditions in Manenberg. Targeted areas include crime prevention, youth development, healthcare services, business opportunities and public transportation. However, Pascoe questions how these plans, without a budget allocation, without a time frame, is able to address the socio-economic challenges currently plaguing Manenberg residents.

“Where was our youth prepared and trained to take the contracts themselves. It is a community upliftment initiative for whom? People are complaining. There was not a true participation process with the people of Manenberg. We haven’t even been afforded the opportunity to bring these plans to our people,” Pascoe continued.

The forum will now meet with residents to establish their own plans, based on the needs of the community which will be submitted to Provincial government for consideration.

“Yet again the City has done what they have done all my life. They come here and tell us dream, then we dream and they take it as their own. That is sad. Enough is enough. They don’t even have a location for a new hospital or a time frame. So I can dream for another 20 to 30 years before we see any changes in this area.”

The ANC Western Cape called the plans for G.F. Jooste hospital a “fabrication”, saying that for the past more than three years the party has pleaded for the speedy upgrading of this hospital as it serviced hundreds of thousands of needy patients mostly from Manenberg, Gugulethu and Langa. Initial indications were that Jooste would close down for a few months while refurbishment and some construction work takes place.

“These people are now without a specialist institution such as Jooste that was known for its high care unit (especially with the gun and peculiar knife wounds that plague the gang ridden areas of the Flats) and effective specialised ARV service. Now these poor people have to go to other far away hospitals at great expense,” said ANC Western Cape leader Marius Fransman.

“It is a travesty that the DA government allowed this facility to be ruined by vandals as no proper security was provided while a state asset like this is plundered. It is also utterly shameful that Zille – who in her 2013 State of the Province Address still promised the planned re-construction of GF Jooste hospital, while in the background the hospital was scrapped, the site reassigned and the building of a new hospital for that area is shifted for years on the backburner.”

Trade union Cosatu also weighed into the matter, saying the DA Leadership has refused to work with civil society and communities to resolve the problems, and closing down the forums where they were obliged to consult the working class. Cosatu provincial secretary Tony Ehrenreich described the plan as “hopelessly inadequate” and “cobbling together old initiatives”.

“The upgrading of the GF Jooste hospital they mismanaged. If they had planned to build a bigger hospital on a different site, why did they not leave GF Jooste operational for sick people, until the new hospital is built?” he questioned.

“The DA has no idea of the problems in the Cape Flats, or how to go about fixing it after 10 years; they confirm as much when they say they are now going to consult communities of their choice. But I am afraid that these announcements are more empty promises that reveal that the Mayor and Premier have no clothes on.” VOC (Ra’eesah Isaacs)