'Cockroaches can't vote'

2003-10-16 22:40

Joylene van Wyk

Kimberley - "A cockroach can't vote, because it is a cockroach. However, cockroaches are expected to make their cockroach crosses during the election."

This was the reaction of Phillip Davids, a resident from Roodepan, after Northern Cape Premier Manne Dipico earlier compared this coloured community's eating habits to that of "fat cockroaches".

John Block, MEC for transport, roads and public works in the province, apologised to the community on Dipico's behalf on Wednesday.

Dipico apparently said last year that members of the Roodepan community were like fat cockroaches. "When there is food, they will be there. When they have had their fill, they go and get drunk."

Now some residents want to know how they could be expected to vote in the election, if they are seen as cockroaches.

Dipico's comments have so incensed the community, that an African National Congress community meeting was disrupted three weeks ago.

Kennett Sinclair, deputy leader of the New National Party (NNP) in the Northern Cape, said the people of Roodepan deserved to be treated with more dignity.

Mafu Davids, ANC spokesperson, said the allegations against the premier were figments of some individuals' imaginations.

"We want to state emphatically that the apology Block offered on behalf of the premier was simply to put an end to the misunderstanding that the NNP spread."

When the premier made the comment, he was apparently referring to people who spread false information about government's development plans, "like the NNP is doing now".

"It seems as if the NNP is still not done with the misrepresentations they learnt during the apartheid era."

- Volksblad