On Women’s Day we celebrate the contributions of the 20,000 women who in 1956 marched on the Union Buildings in protest, but 66 years later their achievements are not getting the dignified treatment they deserve.
The Women’s Heritage Monument in Lillian Ngoyi Square was supposed to be operational by Women’s Day, but the monument is in a dire state of neglect.
John Perlman spoke to the director of communication for the Gauteng Department of Sport, Arts, Culture and Recreation, Nomazwe Ntlokwana, and Democratic Alliance (DA) representative for Sports, Arts, Culture and Recreation, Kingsol Chabalala, about the state of the monument.
According to Chabalala, despite the building of the monument being completed in 2018, it is unkempt, non-operational and exorbitant amounts of money had been poured into it with very little to show for it.
What we found there is that the monument is unkempt, elevators are not working, pipelines close to the parking lot are leaking and when it rains, they are flooding, the roof is leaking…
Kingsol Chabalala, DA representative for Sports, Arts, Culture and Recreation
The only people on site at the monument are security guards and cleaners because it is unsafe to declare the space operational.
Ntlokwana said the department was working on fixing the issues with the building and hopes to have the monument open and running as soon as possible.
Listen to the audio below for more.
This article first appeared on 702 : Dire state of monument to SA’s heroines reflects its treatment of women - DA
