When one hears the name Kya Sands, it's easy to imagine a beachy or sandy area, with palm trees and opulence all around, but for residents of the Kya Sand informal settlement, poverty and suffering is all that surrounds them.
"Here we don't read about poverty in a newspaper. We live in poverty," Norman Ramukumba, 41, said on Wednesday.
He is one of the residents who joined the long queues to cast his vote in the informal settlement outside Randburg, north of Johannesburg.
Ramukumba, originally from Limpopo, said he has been staying at the settlement for the past 15 years.
He said Kya Sands is not suitable for human habitation. High unemployment, brazen crime, lack of water and sanitation are all part of the daily struggle.
Electricity was a privilege they did not have. Nothing has changed since he moved there, and he had little faith anything would change after the elections.
"Most of the time when we go to vote, we usually vote for DA or ANC, and they promise us that they are going to deliver for us, but nothing is happening," he said.
Scores of residents in the settlement braced the long queue on Wednesday. For many, the wait to cast votes took hours.
Our kids don’t go to school. If you get inside the settlement you will find that most of the young girls are pregnant. You can't even differentiate between a mother and a daughter.
— Norman Ramukumba, Kya Sand informal settlement resident
This was apparently due to some technical glitches at the station which resulted in the IEC officials using the manual voters' roll.
"Our kids don’t go to school. If you get inside the settlement you will find that most of the young girls are pregnant. You can't even differentiate between a mother and a daughter," said Ramukumba.
He said it was all because many of the residents were unemployed and politicians made promises but did not deliver.
"They [politicians] shouldn't just come here during election time," he said.
Crime, he said, was out of control with incidents of muggings occurring even during the day.
"You can't walk alone during the night. From 6pm you must just close yourself inside the house. Even during the day, you can't just walk. They mug you ... they don't care," he said.
He added many households didn't have breadwinners and relied on the R350 social grant to make ends meet.
"It is hard to go on day to day. Most people depend on social grants. That's why I am saying pregnancy here is too much. You will find that kids are falling pregnant to try to get more money [from the grant] and make ends meet," he said.
ANC volunteer Ntombikayise Sikhosana, clad in the party's regalia, admitted the ANC hasn't done enough for the residents of Kya Sands.
The 37-year-old said crime, access to water and clean sanitation were problems in the settlement, but as leaders in the community they always strive to improve the situation.
"As you know we use bucket toilets here. We try to get trucks to drain those toilets every week," she said.
She added the problem was exacerbated by Covid-19 when the settlement saw an influx of people who had lost their jobs during the pandemic.
"People who used to rent in other places started coming here, hence there are so many problems," she said.
Ntombizonke Sirayi, who was seated inside the DA tent, told TimesLIVE Premium she had volunteered for the party as she would be paid R300.
She complained that securing a job while staying in the settlement was often very difficult. She said she was hopeful that these elections would turn things around.
"The problems in Kya Sand are so many, but the main issue here is that we don't have jobs. We are struggling to get hired. We vote, but there is no change," she said.
She added that if politicians could visit the settlement or the company owners could advertise opportunities to the people in the settlement, maybe many could be working.
"I have been here from 6am, and I will be here until 9pm. It is just suffering," she said.
Nolufefe Sinukela said she voted in the hope that the situation might change for the better, but where she stayed there were no changes even after voting.
"In these shacks nothing changes. It is just poverty. You vote because it is your right and you believe things will work, but here is a completely different story," she said.
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