On November 4, the community of Kliptown, Eldorado Park, and Klipspruit West marched to the Eldorado Park Police Station to hand over a memorandum to Patriotic Alliance Chief Whip Peter Rafferty.
The community of Eldorado Park, wards 17 and 18, is dissatisfied with the manner in which their complaints are handled by the Patriotic Alliance leadership. The concerned community has placed an official vote of no confidence against ward 17 councilors Dwaine Ponsonby and ward 18 Juwairiya Kaldine. Community members say “they feel dissatisfied with the behavior, conduct, and performance of the councilors.
It is alleged that councilor Kaldine favors certain sections of Eldorado Park and is accused of sending threatening messages to residents who voice their grievances on Facebook and community WhatsApp chat groups. The community also alleges that Councilor Ponsonby is abusing members of the community with physical violence, resulting in assault cases being opened against him.
Patrotic Alliance Chief Whip said, “The false cases were opened against Councilor Dwaine; the court threw out those cases because the case had no basis.”
Mr. Rafferty continues to cite the false allegation made against PA members that they were drunk on the day of the march. He further states that they received a bunch of emails spreading lies and bullying. Instead of people waiting to get proper responses, we can engage.
Community leader Sipho Jantjie says “he doesn’t know about the emails or who sent them, and he also has no idea who was drunk from the PA.” He cites that PA denied the facts that are stated in the memorandum are politically influenced, but evidence of ill-treatment was given.
The Chief Whip said, “What they have identified amongst the community who handed over the memorandum were the ANC, DA, and ActionSA. One of the issues they are raising is the motion that wasn’t supported in council by ActionSA. The reason why the motion wasn’t supported was on the basis that this particular program is already in motion and budgeted for; you can’t bring a motion that is part of the operation of the department.”
PA Chief Whip Peter Rafferty says, “We are giving seven days to respond to the memorandum. I am still in consultation with others, and by Friday we will give a detailed response to the memorandum.”
However, Councilor Juwairiya posted on her Facebook account that I had collected a memorandum of lies and false allegations.
