During her State of the Municipality Address last Tuesday, the city’s first citizen, Cllr Sibongile Makushe-Mazibuko, announced that they have partnered with SPAR Lowveld to mitigate the impact of load-shedding. Twenty traffic wardens will be appointed to assist with traffic control during load-shedding periods, so that there is no chaos and unnecessary accidents.
“The project is envisaged to be piloted for a period of two years before it is rolled out to all other areas in the City of Mbombela. This partnership follows another groundbreaking initiative from a local business centre, Sonpark, that collaborated with the City to adopt a busy intersection that often experiences congestion and accidents during rolling blackouts on Madiba Drive,” she said.
She said, however, there are still challenges that needed to be attended to.
“Let me hasten to indicate that not all is rosy. The City continues to grapple with a number of challenges, like ageing bulk infrastructure, and in some areas, inadequate infrastructure to meet the demands of our ever-growing population. The rolling blackouts, as a result of sporadic equipment breakdowns on the national grid, remain a major cause for concern. This state of affairs has also had dire consequences for businesses, especially at the micro level and in our ability to provide sustainable services. We have also since witnessed an increase in incidents of cable theft during load-shedding, which results in extended outages to our communities. To mitigate this scourge, we will continue to install security measures in hotspot areas in order to protect our infrastructure,” she said.
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Makushe-Mazibuko said service delivery backlogs are currently estimated at over R25b. “This means that the City can only address them over the next 20 years, assuming there is no further growth, which is highly unlikely as people migrate to the city daily to seek opportunities. Bulk water provision has become a daily struggle, and the construction of the long-awaited regional dam has become very critical. We remain committed to ensuring that mega and critical developments to our growth, like Nkosi City, the University of Mpumalanga, Tekwane Hub, Maggiesdal and the Fredenheim integrated human settlements are delivered. As the City, we will endeavour to do our part in providing supporting infrastructure, but we remain dependent to other sectors in fulfilling their part,” she said.
She announced that these developments are worth in excess of R20b, and jobs being created are running into thousands.
“Nkosi City alone can add about R110m in revenue to the municipality for the services provided per annum. Township establishment has been approved by the municipal planning tribunal.”
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“The regional dam can unlock all of these potential developments. The City has already spent over R175m on the Karino Treatment Works, and further appointed a contractor for the bulk line from Emoyeni Reservoir to the Omo Reservoir at KaBokweni, which is approximately 22.5km of a 600mm diameter pipeline, for a cost of R500m over the medium term. This project will augment the current bulk line and will help supply water to communities in Nsikazi. The Hoxani Waterworks has also added 36ML of water to the communities in the northern region of the City,” she said.
