EXCLUSIVE: Patriotic Alliance keeps promise to Beaufort West residents

By: Sello Theletsane

The Patriotic Alliance has kept its promise to residents of Beaufort West living in poorly built RDP houses.

This week, the party’s deputy president Kenny Kunene returned to the community along with councillors, the mayor and the deputy mayor to deal with the challenges facing the residents.

Kunene told the councillors that the residents voted for the party based on the promise to improve their situation and fix the houses that they had been living in.

“I was here in April and made a video where I cursed some people after I saw houses with only one window and one door. The people here have voted for us. What I had not shown was that the houses are not partitioned,” he said.

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The RDP houses have no walls inside, and residents had to use curtains and blankets to separate the rooms to have a bit of privacy.

“These families have children, but the whole thing is just a shell. We complained as Patriotic Alliance. We said to the people of Beaufort West vote for us, and now we are back. I’m saying to the councillors and leadership that now that the people have voted for us and made us kingmakers, in the next council budget must speak to fixing these houses,” Kunene said.

He added that they wanted to see the houses being refurbished and more windows and doors added to the houses.

“This is not right. It does not comply with safety regulations. These are four-roomed houses and not two rooms. Everywhere PA sees a problem and the community gives us the power to run that community, we will come back and instruct our councillors to correct that which we promised,” he said.

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The party has the positions of mayor and deputy mayor in the municipality, and it plans to improve the lives of its people with the power it has obtained. Kunene further explained that they went into coalitions for the sole purpose of being in power to deliver on the promises they made to their voters, leading to the local government elections.

“You can only change the lives of our people if you are in power,” he said.