WHILE President Cyril Ramaphosa on Saturday delivered his final poll message to more than 90 000 ANC supporters at the FNB stadium, a group of ushers and volunteers at the venue complained of hunger and thirst.
“My brother, please help me with something to drink. I could faint because of thirst and hunger. I have been here since 3am, having left home at about 1.30am to be here.
“These people are not even giving us water and we have to get water for ourselves, let alone something to eat,“ a security usher told The Star ahead of Ramaphosa’s address.
Another usher, who also wanted to remain anonymous. lamented the issue of waking up early only to starve the entire day for a payment of R300.
“We get paid just R300 only to be told to wake up in the early hours of the morning. But what can we do, the little that we make here helps some of us,” she said.
Nokuthula Mkhonto, another usher who has been making a living as regular usher at PSL games and other big events, complained of the cold weather and the lack of empathy they were treated with.
“If you must know, we are highly exploited by these agents who hire us and keep us in the cold and sometimes in the scorching heat without food for over 12 hours” she said.
“When a game starts at 3pm, we are told to be at the stadium at 6am just to loiter until the game starts. Sometimes we are paid R300, only for some senior person to demand R50 payment for putting you on the list.
“We are also supposed to pay for our own transport, just to get paid R300. There is too much exploitation,” she said.
Three young volunteers from Mpumalanga said even though they loved the ANC, they were not happy that they did not have jobs.
“Where we are from, young people do not have jobs. It’s only a few that are working or studying. We will continue to volunteer and campaign for the ANC because this is the only party we know,” said Penelope Mhlanga.
Another volunteer who did not want to be named told The Star of the agony of being an unemployed member of the ANC. She said she and her friends had been working with the ANC doing door-to-door campaigns but when it came to jobs, they were overlooked.
“We are always searching for jobs, but only those with connections with our leaders get jobs. We have been doing door-to-doors while unemployed because we love the ANC, but when it comes to opportunities, we are sidelined.
“Right now, we were told to come here to volunteer as there are shortages of volunteers. We are yet to be allocated. They told us it would be nice here, but there is nothing nice about it as we are thirsty even though we were given food. That not enough,“ she said.
Saturday Star