No Fear No Favour, No thoughts like Africans in Africa.....
Carien du Plessis @carienduplessis #etolls22 October 2013 8:19
Carien du Plessis @carienduplessis #etolls22 October 2013 8:19
President Jacob Zuma has urged Gauteng residents not to “think like Africans in Africa” and pay their etolls.
He also said workers would not have to pay tolls because they would be in buses and taxis, which are exempt.
Addressing an ANC manifesto forum attended by students, academics and businesspeople at Wits University in Johannesburg last night, Zuma said: “The roads are to be tolled to pay back the money we borrowed to build the freeways to make the economy flow in Johannesburg.
“The principle of user pay has to be applied to complement the money government spent (to build the roads). This is what all economies in the world do. We can’t think like Africans in Africa generally, we’re in Johannesburg.”
Zuma added that the freeway between Johannesburg and Pretoria was “not some national road in Malawi”.
Using humour to drive home his point, Zuma had the audience in stitches when he said Johannesburg was a “serious national city”, and it was unlike Rustenburg or Pietermaritzburg.
He also said it wasn’t right for all South Africans to pay a fuel levy to fund Gauteng’s new roads.
Zuma explained Gauteng had built a lot of new highways with eight to ten lanes, costing more than R20 billion, which was more than government’s entire roads budget.
“Gauteng is the heart of industry, not like Pietermaritzburg,” he said.
He also said, to laughter, that some things happened in Gauteng that could not happen in Polokwane. Polokwane is the home town of expelled ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema, one of Zuma’s fiercest critics.
Zuma thanked those who have registered for their etolls “so we can build roads and get Gauteng to develop”.
He said roads made it easy to do business.
There was no vocal support for Zuma’s stance on etolls in the audience, and two speakers spoke out against it.
A student said tolls would also “deal with” students and they couldn’t afford to pay, instead suggesting a once-off tax to all South Africans of about R20 to help pay for the roads.
A Cosatu member said Gauteng contributed most to South Africa’s GDP, and only forcing Gauteng residents to pay for the roads would be like only making the sick pay for hospitals, or people with children pay for schools.
Zuma, in his reply, said workers in buses and taxis would not be expected to pay etolls, and he implied that those who could afford a car and petrol, could also afford to pay etolls.
He also said there were alternative routes to take if people did not want to pay etolls.
On the student’s proposal, Zuma said it was something that should be considered.
President Jacob Zuma should withdraw his statement last night that "we can't think like Africans because we are in Johannesburg and not some national road in Malawi".
ReplyDeleteThe President was saying we must welcome e-tolls and pay up because new freeways have been built in Johannesburg.
What the President doesn't realise is Africa is actually developing at a faster pace than he suggests.
Many governments in African countries have adopted investor friendly policies that create jobs.
They are not burdening citizens with double-taxation through an expensive e-tolling system.
The President should rather take a leaf out of the books of other African economies that are actually growing faster than us.
This is what President Zuma neglected to think about when he signed the e-toll bill into law.
Mr President, we are not being backward when we say we can't afford e-tolls.
Your claim that working class people with cars can afford tolls is false.
Who can afford to pay R400 extra month to drive between Soweto and Midrand?
Instead of insulting South Africans by saying we are backward when we oppose e-tolls, we should get rid of this backward and expensive tolling system.
The President should apologize and withdraw these insulting remarks.
Mmusi Maimane, DA Premier Candidate for Gauteng
More than 12million South Africans will go to bed hungry tonight.
ReplyDeleteBid to stop grant fraud Bid to stop grant fraud
Though this country produces sufficient food for its population, skyrocketing prices prevent the poor - most of them urban households - from getting adequate nutrition .
The hungriest people are in Cape Town (80%) and Msunduzi, in KwaZulu-Natal (87%).
A five-year study by the University of Cape Town's African Food Security Unit Network has exposed a food crisis that constitutes a "death sentence" for many and which the government has labelled as "serious".
It found that, in Johannesburg, 43% of the poor faced starvation and malnutrition. Researchers believe the figure could be higher.
According to the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation, 870 million people worldwide are chronically undernourished, 234million of them living in sub-Saharan Africa.
The plight of the hungry was highlighted in 2011 when four children, aged between two and nine, died in a farmer's field as they began an 18km walk in search of their mother and food in Verdwaal, North West. It was later discovered that they had not eaten for more than a week.
The Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries last week revealed that 12million South Africans are "food insecure".
Food security refers to the ability to access adequate nutrition - food that is affordable, hygienic and culturally accepted.
Food Bank SA spokesman Keri Uys said yesterday: "South Africa is in dire straights. The entire country is affected. It is not just rural areas.
"Every day millions of people go to be bed hungry. There are children whose daily food is half a white-bread sandwich. How can you bring up a nation on this?"
"The implication is a death sentence."
The network's Dr Jane Battersby-Lennard said the University of Cape Town study focused on poor areas in 11 cities in the Southern African Development Community, including Cape Town, Johannesburg and Msunduzi.
The survey covered 1060 households in each city.
Battersby-Lennard said the number of South Africans subject to food insecurity could be far higher than the survey suggested.
"The figures from the surveyed cities show 77% of all households were either moderately or severely food insecure.
"When it comes to South Africa, two of the surveyed cities were higher than this, which is dire. The challenge of food security in our cities is greater than imagined."
She said the problem was access to adequate nutrition, not the availability of food.
"This is because of poverty. People are simply too poor to buy food. On top of this, poor areas have seven times fewer supermarkets than rich areas, making it a struggle to access nutritional food.
"This forces households, especially those that run out of money before the end of the month, to borrow and buy food on credit.
"If supermarkets do move to these [poor] areas it often forces informal food traders out of business, making people more food insecure."
She said the government had identified food security as a "critical challenge".
"Though a higher proportion of rural households face food insecurity, when you look at the different scales of food insecurity - which range from mild to moderate and severe - more urban households fall within the severe food insecurity category.
"Severe food insecurity means households are forced to cut back on meal sizes and numbers, with people going hungry for days. Our urban population is facing severe malnourishment."
The study found two distinct heightened hunger periods - January, and during winter. On average, the poorest households surveyed spent 53% of their income on food.
That is why the presidents nephew wants to control the food industry - So that no 1 can eat cake at Nkandla and not pay tolls in Gauteng like us poor citizens of SA.....
ReplyDeleteHe is slipping and cannot retract this last statement and get Mac Maharaj to say he was miss quoted or the statement was taken out of context... Too much of his propaganda is "OUT OF CONTEXT - VOID OF THE TRUTH!"