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Tired of a lagging municipal boundary dispute, Vuwani residents are resorting to using the May 8 polls to get their way
Some members of the pro-Makhado demarcation task team are allegedly demanding huge amounts of cash from senior government officials and ANC leaders in order to allow general elections to take place in the troubled town of Vuwani, in Limpopo’s Vhembe District Municipality, next month.
Community leaders told City Press last week that some members of the task team were “bragging” about having been promised large sums of money.
“They are using the current situation of elections to solicit money,” said a community leader.
“They create an issue when there is no problem so that they can get cash.”
The pro-Makhado team is locked in a municipal boundary dispute.
Members have been at the forefront of protests to have Vuwani remain in Makhado municipality and not move to Collins Chabane municipality, which includes the town of Malamulele.
With regard to the latest developments involving money, the task team is planning to launch an investigation to determine who has “sold out”.
A similar incident happened on July 28 2016.
At the time, the pro-Makhado team failed to convince the Municipal Demarcation Board to allow Vuwani residents to return to Makhado municipality. Violent protests ensued.
The shutdown was then suspended, allegedly after a businessman in the Vuwani area gave some pro-Makhado members cash.
The protests appear to have simmering undercurrents of tribalism as Venda people in Vuwani are against the demarcation, while their Tsonga neighbours have no problem with the redrafted municipal borders.
Several villages in the Vuwani area are opposing being part of the Collins Chabane municipality.
The pro-Makhado group has lost various legal bids to have the Municipal Demarcation Board’s decision to move their Vuwani villages into Collins Chabane municipality reversed.
Three years on, they are still fighting against remaining in Makhado, where they were zoned before the municipal borders were redetermined.
The process to review local government boundaries may start after the elections next month. Municipal elections are set to take place in 2021.
Pro-Makhado’s deputy chairperson, Arnold Mulaudzi, confirmed that the task team had been in “talks” with the ANC at regional level.
“We were scheduled to meet with the ANC on Tuesday, but party officials couldn’t attend because other political parties were in the area. The ANC officials said they were given instructions by the national leadership not to meet with us in the presence of other political parties,” he said.
It is understood that 15 people – including Takalani Mashavhela, an EFF leader in Ward 9 in Vyeboom village, as well as traditional leaders – walked out of the meeting in protest against the pro-Makhado decision to boycott the May 8 elections.
Mulaudzi denied this, saying it was only Mashavhela who left the heated meeting.
“There is a new crop of people who are saying we have to go and vote. But it is just because they are politicians and have interests,” said Mulaudzi.
But Mashavhela insisted that people walked out of the meeting after they were denied an opportunity to speak.
“People want to vote,” he said.
Mulaudzi remained firm that elections were not going to take place in the Vuwani area.
“We are not going to participate. We are going to boycott this election. We have done so since 2016. Unless we get something from government. We have demanded that the government give us a commitment.”
The pro-Makhado members want the government to approach the Municipal Demarcation Board and force it to rezone them to Makhado municipality.
The ANC has described the pro-Makhado task team as a group of hooligans who have assumed illegal authority over the communities in the Vuwani area.
ANC Vhembe regional secretary Anderson Mudunungu maintained that the party would not pay any bribe to this group.
“I do not know of any bribe money paid to the pro-Makhado group. It is not the story that we can license as the ANC leadership. We never did it with the apartheid government; we are not going do it with a small grouping that assumed authority they do not have,” he said.
However, the ANC has raised eyebrows by refusing to meet with the pro-Makhado group in the presence of other political parties last week.
This has raised concerns that the party may be working on a deal.
But Mudunungu said the ANC would not meet the pro-Makhado leadership in the presence of other political parties because “it is election time and the party does not know what their intentions are”.
Soviet Lekganyane, the ANC’s Limpopo secretary, said some pro-Makhado members had openly declared themselves to be ANC members because of Ramaphoria – the mood of positivity that accompanied Cyril Ramaphosa’s ascendence to the presidency – as well as the fact that Ramaphosa comes from the Vhembe region.
“They said: ‘Ramaphosa comes from our region. There is no way we can miss this opportunity as the people of this area to vote for a president who has roots in our region.’
“It is not matter of people having been put in a corner elsewhere and having been promised heaven and earth. The ANC will never do that. We do not have the money to do that,” said Lekganyane.
DA councillor Thomas Chauke defended the pro-Makhado, saying: “The ANC has failed to offer services to the people. The task team is representing communities.”
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