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Now is the time for politicians to use public services

It's time to return meaning and dignity to the events of 1976 and the best way to do this is to focus on the education system and hold our government responsible for this ongoing disaster

THANK God the elections, and the madness they bring, are now over.

The strange thing about our political system is that those who vote are as disempowered as those who don't vote in holding our political representatives accountable.

The question is how do we hold all public representatives from Zuma to Zille accountable?

The answer is simply this: society must take the initiative.

One such initiative is to reclaim June 16 commemoration activities from the madness of politicians.

Predictably, on June 16 our president will be dancing with Chomee at Orlando Stadium, the youth will be bused in and given a free kwaito concert.

That is how the government ensures that a whole generation is kwaitofied.

Through kwaitofication, the government creates a youth that is unable to ask meaningful questions about the country or about the educational genocide that has seen thousands of black learners failing each year.

It's no longer a secret that after a hard 12 years of education in public schools, black learners can't read, write or count.

Is this why the youth of Soweto took bullets?

It's time to return meaning and dignity to the events of 1976 and the best way to do this is to focus on the education system and hold our government responsible for this ongoing disaster.

There is no need to repeat how bad things are in our schools and we can't blame apartheid only.

The ANC has been in power for 17 years now. What is sad is that there is no sign that things are going to change for the better.

We must ask why?

The main reason public services are in such bad state, from our public education, transport, hospitals and housing and so on is because they are not designed to be used by our representatives and public servants.

This is amazing: how can those who are assigned the responsibility of managing public utilities are not the ones using them as a sign of confidence in the quality of the services?

The September national imbizo, an initiative of ordinary citizens, has launched the "Politicians and Public Servants Use Public Services" campaign.

This campaign wants to compel, by law, our public representatives - from the president to local councillors, from director-generals to sweepers - to use public services, starting with education, health, transport and housing.

The idea is if they have to use these public services then they will worry about the quality of such facilities and services.

Let comrade Zuma know that he will have to take himself and his children to Chris Hani-Baragwanath Hospital (formerly known as Baragwanath Hospital) when he is sick.

If an RDP house is good enough for us, then it must be good enough for Tokyo Sexwale.

The SNI is calling for a march on June 16 to highlight the demand for our education to serve the people by insisting that politicians and government officials use public schools.

The march is called from Alex to Sandton, from Hell to Heaven.

This seems to me to be a noble call for all of us who care for the future of this country and our children.

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