The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) celebrated a recent victory after the successful overthrow of the ANC councillor in ward 11, Nkomazi, Mpumalanga. Ward 11 is made up of three villages, one of them being Hoyi, where I grew up. The newly elected councillor is Surprise Mafia Fane, a political activist from Hoyi.
Although I have not fully lived in Hoyi for almost two decades, Hoyi remains my home, where my parents, siblings and other extended family members continue to reside.
The bold strides taken by the residents of ward 11 have revived something in me, bringing hope and renewed aspirations about the future of our villages.
The ANC has ruled ward 11 since 1994 when black people were afforded the right to vote. For almost three decades, the ANC had an opportunity to uplift the lives of the people in Hoyi, but the village has been forgotten by the government.
Hoyi village, 29 years after democracy, remains underdeveloped, with no capability to sustain and help its youth to advance, yet the people of Hoyi have continued to vote, keeping the ANC in power.
Although it is understandable that the government cannot solve all of its people’s problems, it is the government’s responsibility to provide basic services to its people and the ANC knows this because its mantra is centred on offering water, electricity, schools and clinics.
In his interview with Newzroom Africa, Fane gave a clear picture of the current state of Hoyi and the two villages that make up ward 11. The schools are in bad condition, the clinics do not have adequate resources and infrastructure, young people are jobless, there are no basic services and there is still no tarred road.
I hope Fane will bring honour to our village and that other villages will follow suit. I hope he will make deliberate efforts to see and appreciate the people of Hoyi.
This piece is not to talk about the new leadership; it aims to foreground some of the devastating circumstances that villagers continue to endure.
Rural areas exist but are invisible. The arrogance of the ANC has left young people despondent and disillusioned by politics. What we see now is a generation of young people obsessed with alcohol.
What is there to look forward to, when all that is happening in politics is politicians’ obsession with money, designer clothes, and status. For the past few months, the national discourse has been about the Phala Phala saga. National discourses tend to be consumed by politicians’ scandals, moving us away from talking about some of the most pressing issues such as poverty and unemployment and the state of our villages.
Hoyi, like many other rural villages in South Africa, is a mess. For far too long, villages have sustained and even turned a blind eye to the obvious dishonesty of the ANC. But more and more people are starting to entertain questions about the ANC’s capabilities or lack thereof.
Perhaps the only avenue left is to take back our power, just like ward 11 has done. What Hoyi and the other two villages did was a powerful demonstration of taking back their power. Maybe this way, the government will realise that rural areas are made up of real people with agency, people who have waited for almost three decades to be recognised as an important fabric of society.
We need an active and conscious effort that seeks to decentralise resources. If anything, new and innovative is to be done in South Africa it is a deliberate and consensual investment in rural villages.
Villages produce a large number of professionals who contribute to the economy of the country and pay tax. Where does the tax we pay go to?
Does the government understand that people are becoming impatient or are they too busy seeking to renew a hopeless ANC? What is it going to take for our “leaders” to understand our frustration?
Villagers have an important task ahead of them. They can either maintain the status quo or they can follow in the footsteps of ward 11 and be progressive and bold accelerators of change.
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