Makhubo is happy to work together with Midrand residents

To conclude the tour of the community, the mayor, with the help of the Region A Director Abigail Ndlovu, hosted an imbizo to share with the community their future plans and to hear the community members’ grievances with regard to service delivery.

The meeting was attended by ward councillors, MMC for Community Development Margaret Arnolds, MMC for Public Safety Mali Mokoena, Council Speaker Nonceba Molwele, Health MEC Bandile Masuku and MMC for Corporate and Shared Services Loyiso Masuku among others.

Community members raised many issues surrounding their personal and the community’s development, outlining problems such as sewage, roads and infrastructure problems, water billing problems, state-owned organisations hiring people from other areas to service Ivory Park instead of hiring locals, the issuing of land and title deeds, the development of shopping centres instead of libraries and corrupt police officers among other problems.

Makhubo said, “Two things I am sure of which have been an issue which I know of is the water billing, which we promised to solve but it is still not sorted out. I, therefore, refer the matter to our City manager that it needs to be sorted soon. It is impossible for an elderly citizen to have been billed R90 000.

“The second issue is that of infrastructure. The community’s population has grown by 50 per cent and therefore we have to prioritise. Such things as the sewage problem, there is nothing that will solve it until we have a pipe replacement programme in Ivory Park.”

Makhubo added that what they had planned back when they were in office is a programme which would deal with upgrading the infrastructure, deal with the open stormwater channels and be able to put them underground and lastly to deal with the upgrades of the roads.

“Let us accept that there was a disruption in the last three years, our [responsibility] is to come back and ensure that these three things are upgraded in the entire Ivory Park. In this coming IDP, we must make sure that these problems are included so that they can be allocated a budget so these issues can be solved once and for all.

“We have to do what you want us to do, otherwise there will be serious problems. We need to have concrete plans because the IDP process is underway, I am happy and would like to work with the community.”

Related article:

https://www.citizen.co.za/midrand-reporter/237126/an-organisation-based-in-ivory-park-aims-to-make-a-difference-by-donating-books/