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Executive Mayor of the City of Johannesburg, Geoff Makhubo / Image via Twitter: Geoff Makhubo
@GeoffMakhubo

Lockdown hunger leads to heightened tensions in Alexandra

Johannesburg Mayor Geoff Makhubo has vowed to deliver more than 5 000 food parcels in the coming days.

Social grants city of joburg

Executive Mayor of the City of Johannesburg, Geoff Makhubo / Image via Twitter: Geoff Makhubo
@GeoffMakhubo

Residents of Alexandra in Gauteng have lashed out at government for failing to provide food parcels during the nationwide lockdown.

On Tuesday morning, tensions in the township began to boil when hundreds of hungry residents — unable to work due to the stringent lockdown regulations — queued outside a school premises awaiting a delivery of food parcels. According to locals, government, in conjunction with an NGO, had delivered parcels on previous days and had promised the community more foodstuffs on Tuesday.

Despite the long queues, which formed before daybreak, no food parcels were delivered.

Hungry Alexandra residents say they were lied to

The situation soon became volatile and, in an attempt to ease frustrations and assist starved citizens, Johannesburg Mayor Geoff Makhubo met with the frustrated community. While the Gauteng has, under instruction from Premier David Makhura, begun to operate food banks for distressed households, Makhubo was adamant that the situation in Alexandra was not government’s doing.

“It’s unfortunate what happened this morning. I’m told that it’s a partner of the City who came to distribute food a few days ago; they ran out [of food] and they said to people that they would be back today… and they did not come back.”

Makhubo reiterated Makhura’s call for a centralised approach to the province’s feeding scheme and vowed to avoid politicisation of the cause. The Mayor further called on all NGOs to work with, and not against, the City of Johannesburg.

During his visit, Makhubo engaged with several households which were struggling under financial pressure of lockdown. One resident told Makhubo:

“We are hungry; the lockdown needs to end so we can go back to work. We want to be able to live and eat.”

Severe poverty makes social distancing near-impossible

Makhubo noted that the City of Johannesburg, together with its social partners, had managed to deliver more than 10 000 food parcels to households in Alexandra since the start of the lockdown, adding that this number would grow in the coming days.

The Mayor highlight one particularly dire situation as a cause for serious concern. Makhubo expanded on the situation brought to his attention by a local ward councillor:

“It is concerning that there’s a child headed family of 20 kids living under the painful conditions of poverty, making it difficult for them to practice social distancing and self-isolation during this lockdown period.”

Anger on the Cape Flats

Similar frustrations with the food parcel process were expressed on the Cape Flats, when the community of Mitchells Plain clashed with police on Tuesday citing the City’s broken promises. Tafelsig residents, who claim to have been promised food parcels, vented their hunger-induced anger by pelting police officers with stones. Law enforcement officers, in return, scattered the crowd by discharging rubber bullets.

On Wednesday morning, a heavy police presence loomed over Mitchells Plain for fear of another day of uprising.