“Stay away from food parcels” – Councillors warned 

ERMELO – For the umpteenth time, ANC councilors throughout the province have been warned to stay away from the distribution of food parcels, to no avail.

This time around, Gert Sibande District Municipality’s executive mayor, Muzi Chirwa, in his capacity the Chairperson of the District Command Council strongly warned councillors to avoid, by all means, involving themselves in the distribution of food parcels.

Chirwa said this during the District Command Council Meeting held last Monday.

“No councillor in the District must be found to be in violation of the instruction that Councillors should not be involved in the distribution of food parcels. Our role as councillors should be to ensure that the needy people in the communities and the wards we are responsible for, are on the list managed by the Department of Social Department (DSD) and that we monitor that food is received by all”, said Chirwa during the virtual meeting in line with the directive by Mpumalanga MEC for Cogta, Mandla Msibi.

Chirwa further emphasized: “Stakeholders who wish to partner with us in providing food parcels, must all do so through DSD. No one must come with different lists which deviate from the DSD list. There must be coherence and integration of this significant activity”.

The meeting noted that the country will be moving to alert level 3 of the lockdown and encouraged well preparedness by all institutions in the District in this regard.

Chirwa also requested that relevant municipalities provide sanitization services to the traditional council offices within their jurisdictions.

The meeting noted and condemned the school burglaries which continue to happen. The public is encouraged to report any information they may have on these illegal activities happening in schools. In the virtual meeting of the DCC held on 29 May, Chirwa requested leaders in the District to monitor the opening of schools within the District on Monday 1 June 2020 in supporting the Department of Education.

All government stakeholders presented their progress reports to the DCC according to the different clusters and centres. The DCC is scheduled to convene its next virtual meeting on Monday 01 June 2020 at 15H00.