'Let's clean house,' plus five talking points from ‘Vrye Weekblad’

Ruben Richards has worn many hats in his lifetime. 

He was an academic, writer, executive secretary for the TRC, senior member of the Scorpions, businessman and more recently a farmer in the Olifants Valley in the Western Cape. 

If someone of his stature is willing to stand as an independent candidate in the municipal elections, then you know the frustration on the ground is far more than just rhetoric. 

Like many others, he says it is time to get away from petty party politics and ideology and to focus on service delivery and restoring people's dignity.

That is how he became the chief of Cederberg First, a Section 15 organisation that has a candidate in each of the six wards of the Cederberg district in the upcoming municipal elections.

“We are all just residents and that is what brings us together. And what residents want is not massively complicated. They want safety, they want jobs, they want clean streets, they want clean water and that's it. So let's try it. Let's take control of our place and clean our house,” he says.

“For me, it is really simple. Clean water. Clean streets. Clean administration. It has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with service delivery. They are not difficult things. Gather the trash, make sure the water is clean and that sewerage is processed. Hello? Is that so difficult?”

Read more on Richards's work, and more news, analysis and interviews in this Friday's edition of Vrye Weekblad. 

Must-read articles in this week’s Vrye Weekblad

>> Browse the full October 1 edition

FREE TO READ – LISTS OF FEAR | Hit lists are fairly common in the underworld and SA politics. They are particularly effective at creating paralysing fear, writes Kim Thomas from the Global Initiative Against Transnational Crime. 

THE WEEK IN POLITICS | Max du Preez covers the new debate about FW de Klerk's Nobel Peace Prize, the DA and ANC's sewerage problems, Cyril and the Titanic, SA's new Thuli Madonsela, and the poor Brits' Third World problems.

FREE TO READ – STOP HESITATING | With every new Covid wave non-essential medical procedures are postponed and cancer patients have to put their healing on ice. When will anti-vaxxers understand this? 

A PACT WITH A GANGSTER | A gang that terrorised Durban in 1961 was apprehended thanks to an informant who was no angel himself.

A WHOLE NEW CITY | Following the good work resident satirist C Louise Kortenhoven and her team did to establish the Cape Republic of Joumasepoetamia, her department has been tasked to assist the ruling party with the planning of the new city on the KZN south coast.