Khathutshelo (Khathu) Rasilingwane is the DA’s mayoral candidate for the City of Ekurhuleni. (Photo: Tania Heyns/Maroela Media)
Khathutshelo (Khathu) Rasilingwane knows what it feels like to live in a community that the government has forgotten about.
Rasilingwane grew up from the age of ten in the Moriting informal settlement in Tembisa on the East Rand. And today, at 36, she is the DA’s mayoral candidate for the City of Ekurhuleni.
“I know what it means to live without basic services. I know the pain and frustration of seeing promises not kept. That is why I stand here today,” Rasilingwane said on Friday above the screams of a blue crowd after the DA announced her as its mayoral candidate for Ekurhuleni.
Like Cilliers Brink, the DA’s mayoral candidate in Tshwane, and Geordin Hill-Lewis, the DA’s mayoral candidate in Cape Town, Rasilingwane is still relatively young.
Khathutshelo (Khathu) Rasilingwane is the DA’s mayoral candidate for the City of Ekurhuleni. (Photo: Tania Heyns/Maroela Media)
Girl from Moriting
“As I stand here, I can’t help but think of a ten-year-old girl who arrives in Gauteng for the very first time. A young girl who looks out the window and sees rows and rows of informal settlements stretching across the barren landscape.
“I remember turning to my mother and saying something that, as a child, felt honest and innocent: ‘Mommy, I don’t want to stay there.’
“Only a few months later, the very place I feared became my reality. Moriting informal settlement became my home,” Rasilingwane said in her first speech as a mayoral candidate during an event in Olifantsfontein.
“It was there that life forced me to confront hard, cold truths that no one should have to accept. There was no switch for the lights. There was no tap for running water and there was no flush toilet – just a pit toilet.
“The conditions that are not only difficult, but also inhumane,” Rasilingwane told about her growing up years.
“For many people, such crushing poverty breaks their spirit. But for me, Moriting did something else. It lit a fire for justice in me.
“Every day I looked around and realized something profound: This is not the way people were supposed to live; they deserved better.
“My mother worked as a street vendor selling fruit and vegetables. We didn’t have much, but what we did have was resilience, discipline and a deep conviction that our lives could be better.
Khathutshelo (Khathu) Rasilingwane is the DA’s mayoral candidate for the City of Ekurhuleni. (Photo: Tania Heyns/Maroela Media)
“We experienced the daily reality of a failed local government, where service delivery was non-existent. We were bitten by rats in our small corrugated iron houses and saw dusty streets full of garbage.
“We know what it’s like to be forgotten by our government.”
However, she believes growing up in Moriting ultimately shaped her commitment to public service.
Rasilingwane became a councilor of the Ekurhuleni Metro Council in 2016 and currently serves as a member of the provincial legislature.
She believes that the injustices that residents of Ekurhuleni are trying to overcome today may look different than when she was a child.
“But it is no less harmful. Corruption. Service delivery collapsing. Unemployment. And a government that refuses to serve the people.
“What we are seeing in Ekurhuleni today is absolutely unacceptable. We have criminals in charge of our government who have looted our public finances, broken our infrastructure and collapsed our services.
“Let me make it clear: Under a DA-led Ekurhuleni, we will not tolerate the takeover of the institutions that are meant to serve our people,” Rasilingwane undertook.
“We will fight for the people of Tembisa who sit for weeks without water to drink or bathe. We will fight for the residents of Kempton Park who experience endless power cuts while their food rots.
“We will fight for the people of Daveyton who have been waiting weeks for rubbish to be removed as it piles up on their pavements.
“We will fight for the residents of Boksburg who risk their lives every day to navigate dangerous roads with potholes.
“We will fight for every resident of Ekurhuleni who diligently pays for services every month but does not receive them.
“We will destroy corruption and ensure that public money is used to provide basic services.
“We will build a professional, capable administration where officials are appointed based on merit, not political connections.
“We will fix the basics of local government by ensuring reliable water supply, stabilizing electricity infrastructure, providing garbage disposal and filling potholes.
“We will make our communities safer by empowering law enforcement agencies to protect residents and enforce ordinances.
“Finally, we can grow our city’s economy by reducing bureaucracy, restoring basic services and attracting investment, which will create new opportunities for all residents.”
Khathutshelo (Khathu) Rasilingwane is the DA’s mayoral candidate for the City of Ekurhuleni. (Photo: Tania Heyns/Maroela Media)
Strong leader needed in Ekurhuleni – Brink
“If Gauteng is the economic heart of the country, then Ekurhuleni is the right chamber of that heart,” Brink said on Friday shortly before Rasilingwane’s announcement as mayoral candidate about the Ekurhuleni metro.
“From Germiston, the place of logistics and transport, to Alberton, the place of manufacturing industries that have historically supported this country and created millions of jobs to the aerotropolis, the airport. This place is so important but gets too little recognition,” said Brink.
“Because instead of thriving manufacturing industries, we unfortunately suffer from power cuts in Ekurhuleni. Instead of innovation and job creation, there is corruption.
“Why is this city lawless? Why are businesses in town being extorted instead of those businesses being supported by the government? This city, like so many others, is weak because the leadership of the city is weak,” says Brink.
“And the leadership is weak because the votes are spread over too many political parties.”
He says the city needs a strong leader who is supported by a strong party. “A party where you know what the party is going to do before the election and you know what that party is going to do after the election and what that party is going to do in between.
“And this is to fight for residents, to fight for services and to end corruption,” he said.
Cilliers Brink, the DA’s mayoral candidate in Tshwane, speaking. (Photo: Tania Heyns/Maroela Media)
Triangle of excellence?
“Imagine if Helen Zille can win in Johannesburg and imagine if we can win in Tshwane. And then imagine if the DA wins in Ekurhuleni…
“Imagine if we work together through partnerships with the private sector to repair the roads and the electricity and the water and the garbage disposal. Imagine us working together to stop the circulation of deployed corrupt cadres and get qualified people to work for the metro police, to work for the fire department, to work for water and electricity and garbage disposal…
“Together, that triangle of excellence, of clean government, of service delivery can change Gauteng and it can change South Africa,” says Brink.
‘Daughter of Tembisa’
Solly Msimanga, the DA’s leader in Gauteng, labels Rasilingwane as the best candidate to fix Ekurhuleni.
“As a daughter of Tembisa, few people are as skilled and attuned to what the people of Ekurhuleni need as she is. Few people have come this far and seen first-hand what the DA can do when they are in government. That is who she is. She brings an unwavering commitment to the betterment of society, a sharp focus on improving service delivery and above all a heart that truly cares.”
Solly Msimanga, the DA’s leader in Gauteng, speaking. (Photo: Tania Heyns/Maroela Media)
Cilliers Brink and Solly Msimanga on Friday in Olifantsfontein with the announcement. (Photo: Tania Heyns/Maroela Media)
(Photo: Tania Heyns/Maroela Media)
(Photo: Tania Heyns/Maroela Media)