Cape Town - Community activist Joanie Fredericks is fed up with the governement and in particular President Cyril Ramaphosa who, she says has not delivered on the promise he made to the nation when he announced the national lockdown on March 23.
Fredericks and the Tafelsig CAN have been feeding nearly 10 000 people in the community since the start of the lockdown, using money from their own pockets and whatever donations the group secures.
On Monday, Fredericks voiced her frustration in a video message to the president. Fredericks says community members are demanding food from her, claiming that the CAN is being subsidised or sponsored by the government, when in fact nothing could be further from the truth.
"Mr President, let me tell you, I and my CAN, we have never received anything from government departments, except from the mayor's office" she can be heard saying.
Fredericks can be seen sitting among supplies which she explains the CAN volunteers will use to prepare nourishing meals to feed the scores of people who depend on them.
"It is a disgrace that we need to look to private people to see that people eat," she says.
The activist lambasted the president and the government for the lack of delivery on relief promises.
Fredericks used the example of the R350 Covid-19 relief grant. She said one of the CAN volunteers had assisted 60 residents to apply, but only 15 got any response from governement and none of them had received the grant.
Speaking to IOL, Fredericks explained that she realised right at the start of the lockdown the challenges that her community would face and made a conscious decision that this was where she would need to step up. She thanked the donors who have been assisting the CAN in feeding the community.
Fredericks was scathing in her condemnation of local and national government and said that even ward councillors have failed the communities that they have been elected to serve.
"We have taken over the responsiblilities of people who are being paid to look after the community," she said.
Fredericks said she was surprised that there were not more Covid-19 cases in the community, and credited the hearty meals people were receiving with boosting their immunity.
If government did not step up and engage with community leaders on the ground to try and assist in finding solutions to the hunger crisis people would die, not from Covid-19 but from hunger, Fredericks said.
"It's about time that President Cyril Ramaphosa be brought to book because I think that he, and all these other ministers have forgotten how it is that they are in positions of power today. I think that they have forgotten that people have elected them to become president, minister and government officials."