Letter | EFF merely playing the race card

Bid to unseat metro mayor

Who said: “I will kill for [Jacob] Zuma”, “We are not calling for the slaughter of white people, at least not for now”, “Indian people are worse than Afrikaners” and “We are cutting the throat of whiteness”?

It is very interesting that EFF chairman Dali Mpofu’s son has a white mother! I wonder if Julius Malema is also going to cut her white throat? No, do as you say in the EFF. I am not a friend or fan of mayor Athol Trollip. I do, however, like/respect him for his honesty. All of us have a good and bad side. One negative is that he could try to build more bridges and be more accommodating with smaller opposition parties. They are just as important as the “big guys”.

He is, however, brutally honest and focused on building a better, less corrupt city for all.

Sadly though, in the local political arena it is all a case of the tail wagging the dog, the tail here being the EFF-UDM-PA-AIC that together have less than 10% of total votes, yet are causing the DA and ANC to jump through hoops.

But why? I am sure most of us have read Crispian Olver’s shocking book on ANC mismanagement. Let’s state facts: ý The EFF’s reasons for wishing to remove the mayor are that he disregarded poor people, is patriarchal, used money for tarring gravel roads for Ironman roads and had land invaders removed;

The Zuma-supporting ANC faction, that the EFF ironically with its “Zuma hatred” wishes to support, under Andile Lungisa is still in charge of the ANC REC;

Until 2016 ANC/municipal corruption had cost countless billions of rands;

Under ANC rule billions were spent on the IPTS, most of which went to corrupt cadre pockets, all the while our northern areas became war zones and infrastructure crumbled;

Turning a business or entity around is not easy.

Turning an entity such as the metro around involves first stopping/getting to the bottom of the rot, analysing the good, bad and ugly, and then prioritising the must-haves from the nice-to-haves.

That takes at least two years. Only then, once you have some semblance of control, can you actually start to turn the ship into calmer waters; ý I cannot comment on the mayor being patriarchal.

My only observation is that the DA’s local breakdown is, gender-wise, no different/better than the EFF-ANC or UDM’s. Racially it is far more diverse than all parties;

One of the easiest low-hanging fruits to grab is tourism.

Port Elizabeth has the best beaches in the world and we have great weather.

Add the Ironman to the mix and you have low-hanging, job-creating fruit.

If Port Elizabeth does not provide the basic facilities, Ironman and all the thousands of tourists will go elsewhere.

So, too, will the jobs. If that happens, the unemployed of the city should hold the EFF’s Zilindile Vena liable for economic treason;

As for the ridiculous assertion by the EFF, ANC and UDM that the mayor and DA are anti-poor, perhaps you should all listen to your president who has spoken out against land invasions.

For the ANC to piggyback on this accusation, as has been done in council, is nothing short of ironically disgusting;

Nobody has been able to label the mayor as being corrupt.

The real reason the EFF wishes to remove him is because he is white.

If the ANC-Rory Riordan votes to remove Trollip for being white then I believe the ANC-EFF should be charged for racism and Riordan should also be booted out of council for being white.

In short, I am no apologist, and sincerely do believe that the mayor and the DA could easily harvest far more low-hanging fruit, as well as disclose the alleged dirty deeds of Bobani and his fellow ANC councillors.

Sadly though, none of what the EFF is trying to achieve has anything to do with what is right and what is wrong.

As can be seen from Malema’s comments above, the EFF is merely playing the race card.

We are all held to ransom as this is how I think events will play out if the mayor is voted out: first a new ANC mayor will be appointed and Bobani will be re-appointed deputy. In one month’s time when Bongo Nombiba is sentenced for fraud and Lungisa is hopefully sent to jail for alleged assault, the DA will be able to kick the ANC out.

A parallel process will also unfold in which the EFF realises that the ANC and Cyril Ramaphosa are not really going to take all the white and black man’s land. What is needed is for everybody from local to national level, white and black, to be willing to give and take while focusing on building a great nation together.