The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) in Limpopo is calling on the Police to exercise
restraint and to use proportionate force when dealing with service delivery protests.
This comes after Police resorted to firing rubber bullets at the protesters in Seshego,
who are marching to the Polokwane Municipality today, the 26th of October 2022 to
handover a memorandum of demands amid water woes. We condemn the Police
behaviour with the contempt it deserves.
Residents of Seshego and elsewhere in the province are within their rights by
protesting against lack of water, water protests are raising fundamental human right
issue without which life is impossible.
The EFF is in solidarity with the unhappy residents as they are genuinely raising
empirical concerns over the constant lack of water in the area, owing to the ANC poorly
led municipality and Lepelle Northen Water (LNW).
The municipality and the utility (LNW) must be held accountable for failure to provide
water services to the people of Seshego and Polokwane as a whole. Small
businesses, clinics, hospitals and schools are at the receiving end of this prolonged
lack of water, how are they expected to function without water?
For far too long, the ANC government subjected people to abject poverty and poor
service delivery, it is now high time that people demonstrate their frustrations and
demand better services from the government they voted for.
It is now clear that the residents have lost confidence in the current administration
where looting and corruption is rife as the ruling party is putting itself above the people
with its neo-liberal policies.
The introduction of smart meter billing systems by the municipality proved to be
serving the capitalist interests over the will of the people, because residents have been
over billed disproportionate to their day-to-day consumption of water, therefore taking
to the streets is the only way to stop this nonsensical billing system and
maladmistration.
Lastly, we warn Police to refrain from being complicit in denying our people access to
water by intimidating them with the barrel of a gun.
