BARBERTON – After more than six months since the local community has united in cleaning up the satellite police station, nothing much has been done by authorities to reopen it.
The community had dedicated their67 minutes on Mandela Day to encourage authorities to reopen the satellite station, but to no avail. The station was burnt down during a service delivery protest inMarch 2012.
The project to get the station operational again was an initiative of the local parliamentary office.
They engaged with community members on several occasions and most of them indicated they still needed the station so that people could enjoy easier access to services.
This publication revisited the station last weekend and discovered that it was still not functional.
It’s allegedly believed that some of the local business people who promised to donate building materials, failed to fulfil their promises.
Mpumalanga News learnt that the satellite police station was expected to be handed over and start operation in August last year as a symbol of honouring women. Things however didn’t go according to plan.
The paper contacted Cllr Mongesi Nkosi of Ward 7, who was leading the project, to check what went wrong or what had caused the delays and he said,
“We are going to complete what we have started. The challenge that we have now is that we don’t have enough material such as roofing, doors and toilets, but so far, we have managed to start with renovations and have installed new windows.
“We are urging people to come forward and donate material so that we can honour Tata Mandela.
”Next week we are going to engage with the new station commander so that the SAPS can come on board in renovating the structure.
“If we get all these things in time, we will be handing over the satellite police station on Mandela Day since we failed to do that last year during Women’s Month,” he said.
This station played a vital role in terms of bringing services closer to the people.
Previously, community members told the media that this station would assist the community in different ways.
Nonkululeko Sibiya said,
“It’s a good idea to renovate the station because at this stage, we are forced to spend money to go to town, even for minor things like affidavits. When the station was functioning, it was much easier.”
