South Africa dubbed the most unequal society in the world

When I first arrived in the Transvaal (Gauteng ), I was very curious to see   Alexandra township, where my brother, younger sister and I were born, but when my parents decided to go back to the Transkei, I was three years old.

It took me some time to get to see Alexandra, and I will never forget the disappointment I felt because I had never seen such an overcrowded place before. But informal settlements were almost non-existent then, that was in 1972.

Then came freedom with the liberation of not only South Africans, but also the mushrooming of shacks in every vacant space. Informal settlements are very unsightly, built with all kinds of material, black refuse bags,  cardboard boxes, corrugated iron and just anything imaginable.

Based on the sprawling informal settlements, which are now found even in rural towns, as some people leave their decent homes and move into these tiny structures, just to be close to town.

The many foreigners who have left their standard homes in their countries of origin are largely responsible for almost all the squatter camps known as informal settlements. Some, to make South Africa their second home, have big shacks that are divided into as many as four rooms.

They have become so daring that they make sure that they get all the services that were meant for South Africans, free, without paying a cent. And then all outsiders look at all these unsightly structures and believe we are the most unequal society in the world. The irony of the situation is that those who have been to places like Zimbabwe will tell you, you will never see shacks in Zimbabwe.

So our country has been hijacked and vandalised by mostly illegal immigrants, who have also hijacked abandoned buildings and turned them into shacks. That is what the transformation agenda has earned us.

Johannesburg is a shadow of its past, and so are several cities in other provinces. Will we ever have our country back?

Recently, a Zimbabwean woman said in a video," South Africans must know that we are not going anywhere, we have come here to work, and we won't go to Zimbabwe where there are no jobs, why don't they go and stay in Zimbabwe and leave us here to continue working."

Cometh Dube -Makholwa, Midrand.