REPORT ON THE POVERTY REDUCTION AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT CONFERENCE
SPEECH BY COUNCILLOR RITA AUCAMP
I’d like to quote from the City of Tshwane Integrated Poverty Reduction and Community Development strategy:
Strategic Objective 1: To provide quality basic services and develop infrastructure. (Emphasis on the quality basic services).
Strategic Objective 3: To fight poverty, build clean, healthy, safe and sustainable communities.;
And also sir, very ironic, the slogan for this poverty reduction strategy:
Fighting poverty and developing communities: working together towards making Tshwane a city that cares for all. Very Ironic is it not?
Approximately 1.2 billion people struggle to survive on less than a dollar a day world wide = R7,50 per day. Recent estimates of people living in poverty indicate that 18-20 million South Africans live in poverty, slightly more than 50 % of our population. Whilst the proportion of people living in poverty is decreasing, the number of poor people is increasing.
Tshwane has a population of approximately 2,5 million people representing 22,5 % of the Gauteng population. The population of Tshwane grew at an average annual rate of 2.1 %. The inequality and contrast between the rich and poor is rising at an alarming rate with the poor concentrated in the northern region.
Along with the rest of South Africa, Tshwane suffers a crisis of unemployment. Recent statistics by STATS SA showed that Tshwane poverty levels are:
People with no income=172 000, People with an income of R1 to R4,800 =
41 600
These are the 11.7% of the Tshwane population living in poverty. People that our city have a responsibility towards. People like those who were residents of the Kruger- and Shubartpark flats. People whom our mayor made from poor to homeless in less than 24 hours. The same mayor who said and I quote from her keynote address at the poverty alleviation conference: “The city aims to give the poor hope and much more effective ways working them out of poverty.” Ironic that that same mayor only a few months later, after turning a blind eye to the circumstances under which the residents of Kruger and Shubartpark lived, evicted the poor to whom we were suppose to give hope.
Sir,
The Poverty Alleviation Programme in the City can be summarised as follows:
· Free basic services for the poor;
· Registration of the indigent
· Provision of housing to benefit the poor (what a joke)
· Grants-in-Aid to NGO’s and vulnerable groups
· Bursaries for poor children
· Creation of jobs
· Registration of unemployed youth graduates
· And also evicting residents who placed their lot in the city’s hands
This is not enough. Databases and registrations are not feeding a hungry toddler. It is not keeping a grandmother or street child warm in the cold winter nights.
Speaker, we as the city can not promise the residents help through shelter, food and blankets and on the other hand evict them into the cold without any
refuge.
Our mayor is concerned according to her keynote address at this conference about the disparities between the rich and the poor. How did you sleep last week Madam Mayor? Very cosy and warm, I presume, in your Waterkloof home while the residents of Krugerpark and Shubartpark were traumatised by fellow residents‘ untimely death and being evicted into the cold!
The city can host as many poverty workshops and conferences as we wish, but we should stick to our promises and implement workable, feasible strategies to alleviate these huge problems.
To conclude, the Democratic Alliance wishes to express there utmost disgust with the way in which the Mayor and officials handled the Kruger- and Shubartpark issues.
Maybe the ANC and especially the Mayor and her MMC’s should workshop more on how to deliver effective services and uphold their promises made to residents of our city.
RITA AUCAMP
(083)629 0315
SPEECH BY COUNCILLOR RITA AUCAMP
I’d like to quote from the City of Tshwane Integrated Poverty Reduction and Community Development strategy:
Strategic Objective 1: To provide quality basic services and develop infrastructure. (Emphasis on the quality basic services).
Strategic Objective 3: To fight poverty, build clean, healthy, safe and sustainable communities.;
And also sir, very ironic, the slogan for this poverty reduction strategy:
Fighting poverty and developing communities: working together towards making Tshwane a city that cares for all. Very Ironic is it not?
Approximately 1.2 billion people struggle to survive on less than a dollar a day world wide = R7,50 per day. Recent estimates of people living in poverty indicate that 18-20 million South Africans live in poverty, slightly more than 50 % of our population. Whilst the proportion of people living in poverty is decreasing, the number of poor people is increasing.
Tshwane has a population of approximately 2,5 million people representing 22,5 % of the Gauteng population. The population of Tshwane grew at an average annual rate of 2.1 %. The inequality and contrast between the rich and poor is rising at an alarming rate with the poor concentrated in the northern region.
Along with the rest of South Africa, Tshwane suffers a crisis of unemployment. Recent statistics by STATS SA showed that Tshwane poverty levels are:
People with no income=172 000, People with an income of R1 to R4,800 =
41 600
These are the 11.7% of the Tshwane population living in poverty. People that our city have a responsibility towards. People like those who were residents of the Kruger- and Shubartpark flats. People whom our mayor made from poor to homeless in less than 24 hours. The same mayor who said and I quote from her keynote address at the poverty alleviation conference: “The city aims to give the poor hope and much more effective ways working them out of poverty.” Ironic that that same mayor only a few months later, after turning a blind eye to the circumstances under which the residents of Kruger and Shubartpark lived, evicted the poor to whom we were suppose to give hope.
Sir,
The Poverty Alleviation Programme in the City can be summarised as follows:
· Free basic services for the poor;
· Registration of the indigent
· Provision of housing to benefit the poor (what a joke)
· Grants-in-Aid to NGO’s and vulnerable groups
· Bursaries for poor children
· Creation of jobs
· Registration of unemployed youth graduates
· And also evicting residents who placed their lot in the city’s hands
This is not enough. Databases and registrations are not feeding a hungry toddler. It is not keeping a grandmother or street child warm in the cold winter nights.
Speaker, we as the city can not promise the residents help through shelter, food and blankets and on the other hand evict them into the cold without any
refuge.
Our mayor is concerned according to her keynote address at this conference about the disparities between the rich and the poor. How did you sleep last week Madam Mayor? Very cosy and warm, I presume, in your Waterkloof home while the residents of Krugerpark and Shubartpark were traumatised by fellow residents‘ untimely death and being evicted into the cold!
The city can host as many poverty workshops and conferences as we wish, but we should stick to our promises and implement workable, feasible strategies to alleviate these huge problems.
To conclude, the Democratic Alliance wishes to express there utmost disgust with the way in which the Mayor and officials handled the Kruger- and Shubartpark issues.
Maybe the ANC and especially the Mayor and her MMC’s should workshop more on how to deliver effective services and uphold their promises made to residents of our city.
RITA AUCAMP
(083)629 0315
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