These were the words said at Nkowankowa Community Hall on Thursday March 15..

The group which consisted of young people from ward 17, which is formed by Nkowankowa, Dan Village and Mokgolobotho, demanded jobs from their councillors.

They claim that ward 17 Councillor, Joyce Makhubele, and ward 19, Councillor Homegirl Zandamela, give community jobs to people outside of their wards.

“We have been fighting this issue of hiring people from outside for so many years now and nothing gets done about it. Even now there are two people who have been hired at the waste management in Nkowankowa offices from Giyani, while we are sitting at home unemployed,” said an anonymous protester.

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The group had demanded to meet with the mayor of Greater Tzaneen Municipality, Maripe Mangena, but unfortunately he did not attend the meeting, Councillor Cassius Machimana was the Acting Mayor on the occasion and the community did not like it.

“We want the mayor,” they exclaimed.

Machimana was accompanied by Zandamela, Makhuvele and Thandy Mpenyana ward 21 Councillor. Meanwhile a group of contract street cleaners have not been at work for a while, because they were apparently told not to work by the angry protesters.

“We are scared of losing our jobs, we have heard rumours that in June our contract will end and that the new contractor will come with his or her own employees.

“This could mean that after 15 years of being at work we will lose our jobs,”explained one contract street cleaner. Machimana assured the crowd that the issue of employment is one of the municipality’s top priorities.

“The issue of unemployment is a national issue, the jobs that are available are little compared to the number of people in need of jobs,” Machimana told the crowd. Mangena eventually met with the representatives of the community together with the councillors on Monday afternoon, where he gave them a chance to raise their issues.

He condemned the group for saying that they don’t want people from outside Nkowankowa to work in their area and said that it will promote tribalism which is not democratic.

“Tribalism is one of the major factors which caused wars in other African countries and we are not going to allow that, we are all South Africans and we have a right to work anywhere in the country,” Mangena explained.

The mayor promised to attend to the cries of the group and he also asked them to form a committee of five people which will continuously liaise with the municipality. The community has already formed the committee and they promised to stop the disruptions of the municipal services.