Gobhoza residents fed up with poor service delivery
Gobhoza residents cannot bear with poor service delivery rendered in the area anymore, they are now threatening to strike if their complaints are not attended to.
DAANTJIE – Residents in Gobhoza are tired of poor services rendered in this area and are now threatening with massive strike action in the hope of having their complaints attended to.
Speaking to this journalist the locals said they felt like the local council was not serving their needs due to backlog in improvement faced by this community. They only have one school, Pholani Primary School, and this is a problem when learners have to graduate to secondary schools.
They are then obliged to walk long distances to secondary schools which are far away from their homesteads.
“I am very sad, that my little girl will have to walk miles next year to Sibambisene Combined School because I cannot afford to pay transport fees for her,” said a parent who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Another serious challenge is the scarcity of water. However, the community said although they did receive water but it was not sufficient to serve the whole community. Sometimes they had to walk distances to get water from areas far from where they live.
Mpumalanga News also observed that there were dangerous dongas caused by heavy rains and learners had to navigate these to get to school.
“I fell twice in this stream and I was forced to go back home because I was dirty,” said a grade four learner, Nombulelo Mashigo (10).
The community said these streams were a major problem faced by the community and added that they would be happy if the local municipality could send Caterpillars to close these holes.
In response to the scarcity of water, spokesperson for Mbombela Local Municipality, Mr Joseph Ngala said, “Water is not only a problem in Gobhoza, but in all sections and it is not provided 24 hours in all communities. However, we are currently running a project in Tekwane, where new pipes are being installed so that we can increase water supply. We are aware that people cannot live without water.”
He added that the situation was aggrevated by illegal connections by some of the locals which made it difficult for water to reach the reservoir.
