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Provincial government should be charged as an accomplice in the destruction of the once valuable and useful Nico Bekker Hostel in Williston. This is the conclusion of the Democratic Alliance (DA), following an oversight inspection today by myself, together with DA Provincial Leader, Harold McGluwa and Provincial Chairperson, Dr Isak Fritz, to what is left of the building.

An amalgamation of schools three years ago saw the Nico Bekker Intermediary school hostel put under lock and key. For two years the building stood idle. Then the destruction started.

Piece by piece, thieves carried away every possible part of the building, from wall plugs and water pipes, to doors, basins and awnings. Nothing but an empty shell was left.

Instead of concerned government institutions, like the Departments of Education, Roads and Public Works and even the Karoo-Hoogland municipality immediately taking action to stem the destruction, they ignored it. Even after requests by the police for the respective departments to lay criminal charges, after they repeatedly caught people walking off with state property, the state shrugged its shoulders and willingly let the hostel waste away.

The broken hostel is one of many similar ANC-produced examples to be found in the Northern Cape. Sadly, it has come to typify the kind of rot that is inherent under the ANC governments in municipalities across the province and the country.

The demise of the hostel building is a terrible waste of state resources.

Under the guardianship of a DA-government that cares, it could have been transformed into an old-age home, or a service centre, or anything else that could add value to the lives of the citizens of Williston. Instead, it now undervalues the lives of all those in Williston, particularly the homeless, who live there with no water and no sanitation.

The DA has plans to stop the further decline in our towns and to fix that which is broken. The time has come for citizens of Karoo-Hoogland and elsewhere to vote for a DA government that gets things done, not an ANC government that stands back and allows bad things to be done to it.

Issued by Johan van der Colff, Cllr. - Karoo Hoogland municipality