Freedom Rally: Ramaphosa addresses Freedom Day rally amid Makhanda's potholes, poverty and water crisis By Carien Du Plessis carienduplessis
It was an unapologetically ANC gathering. The way a small group of ANC supporters shooed a smaller group of EFF supporters away from the venue afterwards, singing a song translating to “get out, you nonsense”, attested to how it was perceived by many of those attending.
Ramaphosa himself is likely to be aware of the separation that should exist between party and state, but with the Freedom Day event sandwiched neatly midway between his three-day ANC election campaign in the Eastern Cape — from Butterworth down to Uitenhage and back to Mthatha again — it must have taken some doing on his part to take off the ANC T-shirt and to put on a suit.
At this point the crowd cheered loudly because they know what he’s talking about — the queues for some of the 60,000 two-litre bottles of drinking water at the Gift of the Givers trucks attested to that. We cannot be a nation of free people when funds meant for the poor are wasted, lost or stolen,” Ramaphosa said, and there were more cheers because in Makhanda the fruits of that are visible in the potholed roads and some of the general dereliction.
She said they were let in only after the police at the entrance were given clearance by their superiors, but by then they had missed Ramaphosa’s speech.
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