Phalaborwa residents fed up with current leadership
The community of Ba-Phalaborwa says enough is enough, they want better leadership and governance.
They publicly demonstrated this by holding a meeting at the Impala Park Hall on Tuesday, November 14. The meeting called ‘time to blow the whistle’, was organised by Let’s Change Phalaborwa in partnership with AfriForum, local businesses, the tourism industry, and community stakeholders. The purpose was to provide the public and stakeholders an opportunity to vent their anger and frustration with what they call a crisis in the area.
Some of the issues they raised, according to them, included bad municipal governance; collapsing infrastructure and failing service delivery and the impact this has on economic growth, development and the environment. The parties handed a petition to the Ba-Phalaborwa Municipality (BPM) and Mopani District Municipality (MDM), Limpopo’s Department of Economic Development, Environment and Tourism (LEDET), the Office of the Premier, PMC, Foskor and other stakeholders.
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Speakers at the meeting indicated that they lack confidence in both the BPM and the MDM. In the petition, they demand a meeting on the progress made on budgeted (capital and operational expenditure) for Phalaborwa-based projects for this financial year. They ask the MDM to prioritise the needs of the community in the budget.
Other matters that were addressed included the poor infrastructure of the town, lack of water, and the recent fire that devastated homes in town. The recipients of the petition were given 21 working days to respond. BPM’s Mayor Merriam Malatji together with the municipal manager, Dr Kgoshi Pilusa, attended the meeting. A spokesman for BPM, Jonas Mahesu, said the matter is currently at the management level and they will respond to the petition at a later stage.
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“The petition has not been discussed in any of our council structures to formulate an official response. “We do note and respect their views, however, we should appreciate that these councils were democratically elected by the people of this district. “Therefore, only a democratic process consistent with the constitution can remove a democratically elected council.”
