More than five hours after President Cyril Ramaphosa delivered his January 8 Statement, scores of elderly women and children were still stuck without buses to transport them back home from Mbombela Stadium.
Some of them complained of hunger, thirst and being made to endure the scorching sun.
It is reported that some of the buses were stuck on their way back while many others were having trouble accessing the stadium due to traffic congestion.
“We are stuck here and our councillor is nowhere to be found. His phone is off and we can’t get hold of him so that we know what time we are likely to get home. We were told that the bus will pick us up at 3pm but now it is 6pm, and we are still here,” said one of the elderly woman.
Stanley Skosana, who was taking care of the group of gogos and trying to get enough food for the more than 20 elderly women who were travelling with more than 50 young people in one of the buses, said it will take more than two hours to arrive home – which means they will be home much later than expected.
Skosana said in spite of promises of T-shirts by the leaders, they had not succeeded in securing them.
“It has been a struggle to secure enough food for all of them. I have just managed to get a bit of food and cold drinks from one of the people inside the stadium. They have been complaining of hunger and thirst after spending the whole day in the sun. It is not fair what is happening to us as we have been left to fend for ourselves when we were promised food and T-shirts. As you can see, we don’t even have the T-shirts we were promised. Let alone food to eat and water to drink the whole day. It’s very sad what is happening,” Skosana said.
In another incident, scores of ANC supporters clad in ANC T-shirts were seen fighting over KFC on the side of Mbombela Stadium.
In a video that has gone viral on social media, concerned South Africans slammed the ANC over the incident.
ANC Members fighting for street wise pap KFC outside Mbombela stadium. pic.twitter.com/aldpcU1HGy
— Man’s NOT Barry Roux (@AdvoBarryRoux) January 14, 2024
One user said it was painful seeing black people being made to be beggars.
“But why does ANC treat black people like this? The ANC should tell us black people what our people have done to them, so we can apologise. The level of hatred for black people by the ANC is out of this world,” the user said.
The party has been slammed for buying supporters with Chicken Licken and KFC as well as T-shirts to win their votes. The same was the case in some of the instances recorded on social media with some of the supporters thanking Ramaphosa for the “lovely meal”.
On Saturday, the ANC paid tribute to the families of five ANC supporters who died in a bus accident on their way to the ANC 112th birthday celebrations at Mbombela Stadium on Saturday morning.
In a statement, Department of Transport spokesperson Vongani Chauke indicated that preliminary reports revealed that one of the buses was struck from behind and left the road, and veered 20m down an embankment.
“Preliminary reports indicate that three buses were following each other, when the third bus hit the second one from behind, and overturned into a gorge,” Chauke said. | The Star