Recently a group formed by residents of Nkowankowa Township has become displeased with what they call bad treatment by the Greater Tzaneen Municipality (GTM).
They accuse the municipality of not providing the youth of Nkowankowa with jobs and proper housing.
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They are also not pleased with the state of the townships’s parks and graveyard toilets and furthermore state that they don’t understand why Section A of a township is merged with Dan Village and mokgolobotho which are villages.
“We want things to go back to how they used to be, where Section A and B shared a ward councillor. Now as Section A residents we share the same councillor with people who don’t pay for services, how come?” asked infuriated Thulasizwe Shingwenyana, one of the leaders of the outraged group.
Letaba Herald visited the parks the group refers to and in one of the parks next to Teba there is no sign that it was once a park.
The area is overgrown and the local community has started doing their own subsistence farming there.
Herald found young boys who were playing soccer in the streets and asked them why they are not playing in the park and they laughed and said they are scared of snakes they cant play there.
In the graveyard the toilets do not have doors, windows or functional toilets.
Neville Ndlala, Municipal Spokesman stated that the municipality is in the process of looking for a service provider who will maintain the parks and that the toilets will also be fixed.
In terms of employment he stated that GTM always advertises vacancies whenever posts are available and encourages residents to take advantage and apply for a fair chance of employment.
Ndlala further stated that the bunch need to address the issue of demarcation with the demarcation board and they will get assistance there.
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Two weeks ago the group shut down the municipal offices in the township including the stadium, community hall and waste removal site claiming they needed answers to their quarrels.
They took the matter forward and went to the Tzaneen municipal offices where they demanded to meet with the mayor, but the mayor was not available and they were addressed by management of the municipality.
However, the group still maintains that they are not happy because the mayor did not attend to them.
The GTM later got a court order after the group disturbed the municipal services and prevented people from entering the municipal offices.
“They were issued with court orders because they violated other people’s rights to work and prevented civil citizens from accessing the very same services which they claim to be fighting for,” Ndlala concluded.
An update on the matter will be given as the story progresses.
