You are a Pig. Kunene To Helen Zille over issues concerning

Patriotic Alliance (PA) deputy president and MMC for Roads and Transport in the City of Johannesburg, Kunene, has accused Helen Zille of misinforming the public by posting a video of herself swimming in a pothole in the north of Johannesburg.

Earlier this week, Zille raised eyebrows when she was seen in her swimming gear doing the backstroke in water she said had gathered in a pothole.

Zille did ‘a very unhygienic thing’

But in a video on social media, Kunene has denied that Zille was in a pothole, saying she was in a hole that had been dug by Joburg Water as the municipality was fixing a burst pipe. He said this is how the pool of water was formed.

“The time of elections makes politicians desperate and you would have seen that with Gogo Zille, who does not understand how Johannesburg works. She went to do a very unhygienic thing, swimming in a hole that she called a pothole.

“It’s not a pothole, it’s a reinstatement,” he said.

Kunene said it was Johannesburg Water’s responsibility to close the whole since it was not a pothole.

“But because Helen Zille came to Johannesburg targeting Kenny Kunene and JRA, any hole, even though she does not know what it is about, she already thinks that it is a pothole,” he said.

Joburg Water and JRA

Kunene said his department would come in to do a reinstatement only after Johannesburg Water has completed its work.

“We are reinstating the infrastructure that was damaged by Joburg Water after Joburg Water fixed a problem. So, it’s unfortunate that an old lady like that can behave like a frog swimming in dirty water, behave like a pig rolling in muddy waters. Unfortunately I cannot swim with pigs in the mud.

“I am very clean, but I get my hands dirty in the right way, not in the way to be sensational,” he said.

Watch: Kunene criticises Zille’s publicity stunt

Kunene said he believes Zille has made a fool of herself.

He said he believes that he has done well since being appointed as MMC of transport.

“We have done over a thousand reinstatements, some of them by the private sector, some of them by City Power, some of them by Joburg Water, and Joburg Water owes the Johannesburg Roads Agency hundreds of millions in the reinstatements that we have done.”

Kunene had this message for Zille: “Gogo Zille, please research first before you embarrass yourself the way you did.”

Bad example to children?

The mayor of Johannesburg, Dada Morero, has also criticised Zille for swimming where city pipes have burst and created a pool.

“You are encouraging children in the townships to swim when there is work that is being done in the best pipes and we have seen in the past where children die of swimming in a manhole or where a pipe burst has been repaired,” he told the media.