GIVE THE FREEDOM OF CAPE TOWN TO THE POOR, MOSTLY BLACK PEOPLE OF SOUTH AFRICA INSTEAD OF AWARDING IT TO THE WEAK-WILLED, BARACK OBAMA
THURSDAY, 23 MAY 2012

NEHAWU has noted with concern the announcement by the Mayor of Cape Town, Ms. Patricia De Lille, that the city of Cape Town will be giving Michelle and Barack Obama the freedom of the City of Cape Town. We are totally opposed to this because the majority of the poor people of Cape Town are still treated like outsiders in their own city and nothing has been done by Ms de Lille to narrow the huge inequality gap that exist between the rich and the poor.

It is not surprising for the hypocritical and opportunistic DA led municipality to try and ingratiate themselves with the spineless Barack Obama and his wife because it is in keeping with their elitist tendencies. They want to award the freedom of the city to a celebrity politician and his wife while at the same time their leader Helen Zille is lamenting about poor South Africans flooding the city of Cape Town. Grandiose and superficial gestures to the leaders of the Western world cannot mask the failure of the Cape Town municipality to deliver services to its most vulnerable citizens.