Rapula Kedige
(Tlhabane)
Life can be unfair sometimes. People fought for the liberation of this country and the people of the townships of Tlhabane are no exceptions to that. They had to come up with strategies to down, weaken, paralyse and destabilize the apartheid government which also had planned very well, for example introducing the so called independent states (TBVC).
One of the people strategies was to boycott the payment of services with a promise from the wanna-be leaders that after freedom the people won’t be liable to pay that debt or rather will be exempted from paying those monies. The community is now faced with the problem of having to pay or face water cut-off because the municipality has handed their accounts to revenue collectors (REVCO).
To dwell more into this issue I interviewed one of the people who has been and still fighting for scrapping of all the debt which he refers to as apartheid debt, he is a member of SANCO Tlhabane branch and holds the highest position in the executive. For fear of intimidation he asked to remained anonymous, since he is familiar with this issue I deemed it to fit to interview him.
During the interview I could sense that there is trouble brewing between the RLM and SANCO (community). According to the interviewee, the RLM claim to have scrapped the so-called apartheid debt which SANCO and certain portion of the community believe is pure lies. They still have to pay heavy debt that they owe. In one of the Imbizo’s held early this year the RLM called on all those who are not happy with their accounts to come check whether the scrapping has been effective on their accounts. The interviewee labelled that the action as a sign of cowardice, he believe that this is a divide-and-rule tactic that would scare people away from airing their concerns freely. He added that “when we boycott payments, we did it collectively and not individually”.
I personally believe think that there is more to this than meets the eye. I sense that there is a political vendetta here. The community must guard against been used as pawns for political gains. This issue has dragged on for far too long but to no avail. I believe that this issue can be buried once and for all if the community can tackle this problem without the interference of political organisations. Politicians tend to agree to disagree on certain things hence in some instances their discussions never satisfy the community and even drag for long.
I learned that if people are not united they often become vulnerable to the ignorance of the ignorant leaders.
(Tlhabane)
Life can be unfair sometimes. People fought for the liberation of this country and the people of the townships of Tlhabane are no exceptions to that. They had to come up with strategies to down, weaken, paralyse and destabilize the apartheid government which also had planned very well, for example introducing the so called independent states (TBVC).
One of the people strategies was to boycott the payment of services with a promise from the wanna-be leaders that after freedom the people won’t be liable to pay that debt or rather will be exempted from paying those monies. The community is now faced with the problem of having to pay or face water cut-off because the municipality has handed their accounts to revenue collectors (REVCO).
To dwell more into this issue I interviewed one of the people who has been and still fighting for scrapping of all the debt which he refers to as apartheid debt, he is a member of SANCO Tlhabane branch and holds the highest position in the executive. For fear of intimidation he asked to remained anonymous, since he is familiar with this issue I deemed it to fit to interview him.
During the interview I could sense that there is trouble brewing between the RLM and SANCO (community). According to the interviewee, the RLM claim to have scrapped the so-called apartheid debt which SANCO and certain portion of the community believe is pure lies. They still have to pay heavy debt that they owe. In one of the Imbizo’s held early this year the RLM called on all those who are not happy with their accounts to come check whether the scrapping has been effective on their accounts. The interviewee labelled that the action as a sign of cowardice, he believe that this is a divide-and-rule tactic that would scare people away from airing their concerns freely. He added that “when we boycott payments, we did it collectively and not individually”.
I personally believe think that there is more to this than meets the eye. I sense that there is a political vendetta here. The community must guard against been used as pawns for political gains. This issue has dragged on for far too long but to no avail. I believe that this issue can be buried once and for all if the community can tackle this problem without the interference of political organisations. Politicians tend to agree to disagree on certain things hence in some instances their discussions never satisfy the community and even drag for long.
I learned that if people are not united they often become vulnerable to the ignorance of the ignorant leaders.
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