Listening to the silent majority

[132]

I kept thinking about the various critical sounds I had heard about Sofasonke and the grand old man of the party, Ephraim Tshabalala. In 1947 he had began his business empire with eleven pounds and in 1951, after much hard work with his wife, he held 2 million pounds in the bank. Now, he conducts some 30 companies and heads a fast-growing organisation in the realm of politics, called Sofasonke, at the same time.

I put it bluntly to him. Did he or did he not accept money from residents directly, instead of people paying their dues to town councils? ‘That's not true at all,’ he replied, being surprised at my question.^119. ‘You must go back to the time that people refused to pay services to town councils. At that time, we advised our members to pay, under pro-

119. This is what the five mayors had told me in the Carlton Hotel before

[p. 189]

test, 15 Rand for services, until elections could be held, after which we would negotiate new rates with the tpa and the town councils.’

Former Mayor Nelson Botile had stressed that Sofasonke promised in the election campaign to make sure that people would never have to pay more than 15 Rand for services. ‘Therefore’, said Botile, ‘the people followed Tshabalala on the basis of simple lies. Of course, he could not offer them 15 Rand for service dues after the election. Soweto recently announced that the service rates were going to be 50 Rand for electricity and 22,50 for services, which is 72,50 Rand in total. Tshabalala proposed 15 Rand which was really mad to begin with. He might be a great businessman but one wonders whether he is quite normal up here,’ (and he pointed to his forehead).

Listening to Mr Tshabalala, I concluded that the many complaints about Sofasonke, from Botile and other mayors in the Vaal region, did have a basis of fact, Tshabalala told me, ‘The Sowetan Town Council proposed service charges from 56 Rand to 100 Rand up to 150 Rand. Therefore I said, “let's protest, we are only going to pay 15 Rand.” That was the 15 Rand Botile was talking about.’ Tshabalala: ‘After this proposal, many people in the townships joined Sofasonke. We said, old people, who often have to live on 250 Rand in 8 weeks, how can they pay 56 Rand for services? They also have to eat. Of course, there were complaints from sitting town councils when I proposed the 15 Rand payment instead. But whose fault is it? I have in this building alone some 16 offices divided over a number of floors. We pay 12 Rand for electricity. How come people in Soweto pay so much more? I then suggested that the poor and elderly pay no more than 20 Rand for electricity. This was accepted, because old people and poor people do not watch television. They use coal stoves to stay warm, not electricity. Now the other people pay 50 Rand for electricity plus R22,50 for services. Mind you, since May of this year all the people are paying up their service charges again in Soweto.’

To make sure, I rephrased my question: ‘And Sofasonke is not asking anybody to pay service charges to your Party?’

‘No, not at all,’ said President Tshabalala. ‘Everybody pays to the town council. They are also getting new forms by way of receipts. We are operating strictly legally. We do not take money from anybody. The only money I take is for memberships and we get donations for lawyer costs.’

[p. 190]

I also wanted once more to know Mr Tshabalala's view on developments in Lekoa city, where I had gained the impression that Sofasonke councillors had been instigating illegal acts against mayor Samuel Kolisang, because the mayor refused to meet a number of their demands.

‘Samuel Kolisang was with me in Sofasonke,’ said Ephraim Tshabalala. ‘He was supposed to enter the Lekoa elections in 1988 on our behalf. As I told you, he founded his own Party instead, copied our constitution^120. and people voted him into office not understanding why the Party was called vrrp and not Sofasonke. That's where his troubles started. Kolisang will be voted out of office before the end of the year. You can only vote a mayor out of office after 12 months.’ There are obviously two sides to every story which perhaps was what John Mavusa had meant when he cautioned that the Lekoa city affair was a complicated one. What these conversations do underline, however, is that the Transvaal Provincial Administration is faced with an entanglement of problems of which most citizens in this country seem to be completely unaware.

Sofasonke also said ‘no’ to the National Forum of Black Leaders. Ephraim Tshabalala, too, feels that the members of the nfbl should be voted for by the people, as should be the future representatives to the Great Indaba. I asked him for an opinion on a possible referendum for the black representatives to the great conference of all the people to decide on the future of South Africa. ‘That is the only way to do it,’ he replied.

‘But, that would mean letting scores of radicals and brainwashed communists back into the country,’ I said. Tshabalala, ‘It's true, we don't know these people, who are now outside. Some of them went away when Soweto was about to begin. These refugees don't know what happened here and what is happening now. How could we ever accept leaders we do not know? We don't know Oliver Tambo. He was just an ordinary man when he left us. To portray him now as the hero of our people is plain nonsense. Tambo must come back here and he will discover how many friends he will have. Even Nelson Mandela, we do not know him. He is just a big name. There is one man we respect and that

120. As reported before, an inside VRRP source had strongly denied that the movement had copied the Sofasonke Constitution

[p. 191]

is Gatsha Mangosutu Buthelezi. That's a man who was in the congress. He is a man from a royal family. He never talked from the stomach, as some of these so-called leaders do. Buthelezi has been talking all the time from his head. Most of these “leaders” don't talk from the head. They don't use their brains, or they do not have brains at all.’

Mr Ephraim Tshabalala rejected the idea of a one-party Marxist State. ‘We don't want communism. We want freedom for everybody,’ he said. ‘We want to be able to choose where we will live and where we want to go. Communist laws are not acceptable to us. Before the white man came here, we were also free to move and to dance and to enjoy life. There is not better system for people than to live under democracy and a democratic system of government. We black people, we believe in our King. We believe in leadership from the King. We again must have our King. The King will not tell us lies. We cannot believe an ordinary person. When you own nothing, you can't stand in front of people and tell them what to do. We must first know how many cattle he has, or that the leader is an established man. Someone, who owns nothing, who has no cattle, he cannot stand up and speak in the “kraal”. You cannot. All people who accept responsibility for their country, must also be able to stand up in the “kraal”.’

The Sofasonke Party is becoming a national organisation lately. Sofasonke is now also active in the Orange Free State. Ephraim Tshabalala leads the Party through an Executive Committee, but has on top of that formed a six-man presidential cabinet consisting of his closest advisors. ‘We send our people in cars to town councils and when the councillors don't want to listen to us, we go directly to the people and convince them and show them what to do. We tell them, for instance, that whites have unity in their Nationalist Party, why should not blacks in the urban areas unite and be one? Not in the homelands, because they have their own autonomous governments. We must have one voice in the urban areas, that is what we are striving for.’