ABAHLALI BASEMJONDOLO MOVEMENT OF SOUTH AFRICA (WESTERN CAPE PROVINCE)

Website: khayelitshastruggles.com or www.abahlali.org
Email: abmwesterncape@abahlali.org office admin: 073 2562 936/ 078 760 5246

Call for a Public Debate

Abahlali baseMjondolo of the Western Cape would like to call a fair and neutral public debate between the movement and Zalisile Mbali (the spoke person of Madikizela MEC for Human Settlement).

The call follows unfair radio show which was organize by community radio station Radio Zibonele where Zalisile Mbali used to work as a presenter, later on he run a program which called hot seat where he used to host Helen Zille (that time Zille was still the Mayor) every Sunday at 6:00 pm.

Immediately after the DA won the Western Cape province he (Zalisile Mbali ) was appointed as a spoke person for Madikizela by Helen Zille.

Yesterday Zalisile Mbali used his political connection to the station to attack Abahlali baseMjondolo and he was supported by the presenter of the show. During the show Mzonke Poni was only questioned for 10 minutes strictly on the tactic of barricading and on the incident of trucks that were set a light during the protest at TR and the rest of the air time was given to Zalisile Mbali where he misled the public on the outcomes of fruitless and useless meeting that we had with the department of human settlement two days back and branded the meeting the ‘most successful meeting’ which managed to respond to the demands of Abahlali baseMjondolo of the Western Cape, which he was lying because none of their presentation tackled even a single question which was address on the memorandum instead they chose to orientate us on Departments 5 year Plan which is available on their website.

And as Abahlali we find the meeting as useless and waste of our time because they should have sent us straight to their website.

During that meeting it become clear that the department of Human Settlement does not have a wide housing planning for people residing within informal settlement, and it is appalling to find out that the department does not even have a clue if by when they are planning to phase out the bucket system in the province.

They don’t even know if by when all informal settlement throughout the province will have access to basic rudimentary services.

To expose this in a fair and democratic way not by misleading the public either by Abahlali baseMjondolo leadership or Department of human Settlement officials like Zalisile Mbali. Abahlali baseMjondolo calls to all radio stations to initiate a public debate about whether the department of housing does have a plan for people living within informal settlements or not and specifically We challenge Zalisile Mbali (the spoke person for Madikizela) and the Chairperson of Abahlali baseMjondolo of the Western Cape Mzonke Poni to take this debate.

For comments please call Mzonke Poni at 073 2562 036

* The protest in which the trucks and the police car were burnt was not organised by AbM. There is a general wave of popular protest in Cape Town at the moment, much of it organised at the local level, and much of it organised independently of AbM.