Community raises concern over service delivery
Delegates from the area who visited Mpumalanga Mirror last week said they were tired of empty promises promised to them by leaders of the ruling party and want the party to keep up to those promises immediately.
Residents of Zone 10 in Jeppes Reef, Nkomazi local municipality, are not happy about the delivery of basic services in the area including water, roads and electricity.
Delegates from the area who visited Mpumalanga Mirror last week said they were tired of empty promises promised to them by leaders of the ruling party and want the party to keep up to those promises immediately.
They had met with the relevant persons for several times but had been had not received straight answers. In October last year they reported to the area’s councillor about the alleged continuing illegal closure of water pipes supplying Zone10 but unknown person from the other phases. “We asked the councillor to solve this and she promised to build a new valve for our section a promise which she never kept,” said Mduduzi Nkambule a resident. They added that they have to walk long kilometres to get water at Schoemansdal.
The residents are also furious over a recently collapsed bridge over Ngugwane River which had so far claimed three lives. The latest victim was a seven year old learner who was swept away by the river while trying to cross the bridge. “Cars cant cross from one side to the other, even that body stayed over five hours. The incident happened around 12 and the body was removed from the scene about 17:00 because it was very difficult for the people, ambulance and hearse to cross over,” they added.
“So far bereaved families had to carry coffins and corpse to cross the river,” they added.
The area also doesn’t have electricity while occupants had been living there since 2007 after khontaed from the Shongwe Tribal Authority. They added that two children were burnt to death in 2011 after the shack they were sleeping in caught fire from a candle. “Local authorities promised that family an RDP house but until this far they haven’t received that house,” he added.
“Our municipality always make promises which they never keep,” they added.
The residents added that they were surprised when their application to march for basic services to the Nkomazi Local Municipality was turned down by some municipal workers after the Schoemansdal police station told them that they have to apply from the municipality.
Attempts to get comment from the Nkomazi’s local municipality’s spokesperson, Cyril Ritinga proved fruitless as his phone rang unanswered. Jeppes Reef councillor, Cllr Gugu Nkambule said a report had been made to the local municipality about service delivery concerns at Jeppes Reef. “The municipality is still consolidating disaster reports from the whole area not just Zone 10. I will be addressing the community on April 18,” said Nkambule.
On the other hand, Col Leonard Hlathi reported that 20 people aged between three and 45 years had drowned in different parts of the province since March 4. The latest victim was a nine year old child who drowned on Saturday ( March 29) while playing with friends at Skororo River near Kabokweni. “This is a serious concern to us despite the fact that we had issuing out warnings to the community to avoid river as they still flooded. We still continue to call on members of the public not to try to cross rivers at this time of the season they are still flooded,” said Hlathi.
