Councillor accused for allegedly ignoring the voice of the poor
Ward 32 residents have hammered their ward councillor, Johan Hendricks, of the DA, for being evasive and disregarding the voice of his constituency.
Members of the ANC in Ward 32, Boksburg, have expressed reservations about the level of community participation in governance, as well as the quality of reporting back by public representatives.
According to Chris Ngxabuza, the ANC chairperson in the ward, they attended a report back session by Hendricks at the Boksburg Civic Centre, on Tuesday, April 14, and, instead of providing an overall ward report, the councillor concentrated only on the specific topic of the Cinderella Hostel dwellers.
“Questions of crime, prostitution, drugs, economic decline and other social ills were not mentioned,” he said.
“Several questions were raised about government’s intervention on the issues of poverty, homelessness and unemployment, but these went unanswered, as the councillor continually told us that these are council decisions, not his.
“As the ANC, we feel that, as an elected public representative, you are accountable to all your constituents.
“Democracy is about representing the dreams and wishes of the constituency that elected you.
”In Ward 32 of Ekurhuleni, we do not believe that the voices of the poor, black or white, have been listened to; we believe that the voiceless are being further marginalised on a daily basis.
“We hope and wish that, sooner, not later, the voters of Ward 32 will realise that South Africa’s future lies in the hands of those on the fringes of society, and not those who live comfortable lives!”
Ngxabuza said that the ward councillor and his ward committee had no structured agenda for the poorly attended meeting.
He also insisted that the ward committee continually tried to halt a march by the ANC to raise various issues, including poverty, health and homelessness.
The march, from the Cinderella Hostel to the civic centre, eventually did take place on April 23.
Hendricks, however, denies the allegations by the members of the ANC.
He said he welcomed the planned march to raise awareness of important issues, which the government has not been able to address to the satisfaction of the community.
“It needs to be remembered that many of the issues raised by dissatisfied community members are regulated by the province; the march would be more effective if marchers demanded answers from the ANC-dominated provincial government, either by marching to the legislature or by insisting a representative of the province met them in Boksburg,” Hendricks added.
“It is the ruling party that must address the community’s concerns and supply them with answers as to how these are going to be resolved satisfactorily.
“It would be ineffective to try to get local government representatives to answer for issues that are beyond the mandate of the metro, which is responsible for supplying services such as electricity, water, sanitation, parks and recreation, roads and transport, licensing, libraries, clinics and social housing.”
With regard to the problems with the April 14 public meeting, a lack of proper documentation was blamed.
“It was the fault of the ward co-ordinator appointed by the metro to assist me as the ward councillor,” said Hendricks.
”This could also be seen as an attempt to further undermine me, and the matter has been reported to the Speaker of the Metro.”
Regarding the poor attendance, Hendricks said the same official is also responsible for ensuring that public meetings are advertised in advance and for ensuring that a proper agenda, minutes of previous meetings and an attendance register are available, but these items were not on hand for the April meeting.
“At the meeting, I did encourage those community members present to put their complaints in writing, so that I could forward them to the correct tier of government, namely the province, as the most of the grievances and complaints raised were not local government issues,” Hendricks said.
“We, the DA, firmly believe that the incompetency’s of the ANC-led metro will continue to frustrate the communities of Ekurhuleni, and that the only solution is to change that ‘which is broken’ at the ballot box.
“Until then, I will continue to fight for the poor and marginalised in the community, regardless of their political affiliation.” – @FanieFLK
