‘Neglected by national and provincial government’ – Emfuleni service delivery worsens by the day

The troubled Emfuleni Local Municipality in the south of Johannesburg continues to be in the news for all the wrong reasons.

This as concerns over the poor state of service delivery remains unresolved.

Some of the service delivery issues that have been raised by residents, political parties and the business community range from water, electricity and the non-collection of refuse collection in many areas of the municipality.

In recent months, an organisation calling itself the Vereeniging Business Corporation (VBC) threatened to boycott paying their monthly municipal rates and taxes.

ALSO READ: ‘Service delivery is a joke’: Gatvol businesses to boycott paying rates in Emfuleni

Speaking to The Citizen, director of the VBC Mpho Khambule said several businesses are currently boycotting paying for municipal services by paying the minimum rate.

“We are only paying the minimum amount of the entire bill and we will continue like this until the premier gives us audience.

“We’ve attempted to meet with the premier since last year November and about four times he has cancelled planned meetings,” said Khambule.

He said the reason why they decided to escalate their concerns to the provincial government level was because they have accepted that nothing will ever change in the municipality.

“It is also our view that Emfuleni is neglected by both the national and provincial government.

“We are currently at the most disastrous situation and the municipality is not engaging with us, they are going around to each individual business to request for assistance and avoiding the local chamber which most businesses belong to,” Khambule said.

Locals doing what Emfuleni is failing to do

Khambule said they are currently collecting their own waste, while also servicing and guarding the substations as well as water and sewerage pump stations.

“This is a problem because we are subjected to power reduction over and above load shedding and we are currently losing 15 to 20% of our income due to backup systems which include generators.

“Eskom and Rand Water are refusing to lift the bank accounts that were attached because of defaults by Emfuleni,” Khambule said.

The way forward?

Khambule said they are now giving Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi until 2 March to meet with them, warning that should a meeting not take place, they would be left with no option but to take the legal route.

“We will be hosting the Emfuleni business community engagement forum at the end of this months in a bid to canvas support towards the court action,” Khambule added.

Commenting further on the dire situation in Emfuleni, councillor for the Democratic Alliance (DA) Dady Mollo said the storm water system in many areas is blocked, collapsed, old or does not even exist.

“This means that the base layers of the roads become compromised, and the life span of the road deteriorates with potholes everywhere,” he said.

Electricity crisis

Mollo said electricity theft remains one of their major problems.

“The municipality is losing a lot in stolen electricity while on the other hand the municipality owes Eskom around R6 billion,” said Mollo.

He said some residents are also plunged into darkness for weeks due to the municipality’s poor response times, which is largely due to its dysfunctional call centre.

Water crisis

Mollo says water leaks are costing the municipality more than a billion a year.

“The water leaks are being reported regularly through various communication channels but still they don’t get fixed timeously and on top of that the municipality is still faced with the issue of old and aged municipal infrastructure,” Mollo said.

Up to a month without refuse removal

“Neglecting to remove trash, forcing residents to live in unhygienic and unhealthy conditions, is unacceptable as residents have to continue suffering because of the ANC-led coalition’s inability to show even the most basic respect to South Africans.

“The increased lack of basic service delivery, deteriorating throughout the municipality, and the lack of general capacity to deal timeously with these challenges is of a serious concern,” Mollo said.

“Even the ANC’s own coalition partners don’t have confidence in the mayor (Sipho Radebe) to an extent that they are in a process of contesting the mayor and the speaker.

“This coalition arrangement has brought nothing positive to Emfuleni, instead it is just making things worse as the municipality has regressed and the future of the ANC-led coalition is doomed because they care less about the community and all they want is to get in power to enrich themselves rather than making life better for residents,” Mollo added.

There was no majority winner in the 2021 local government elections which meant a coalition government had to be formed which is currently led by the ANC.

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Meanwhile spokesperson for one of the coalition partners, the New Horizon Movement (NHM) Mpho Khang admitted that service delivery has regressed since the first attachment of Emfuleni’s bank accounts by Eskom in December last year.

“While the mayor is rendered useless and ineffective by his comrades, he is a good man who wants to change things but he is powerless as he is not in the top six of the ANC’s Regional Executive Committee (REC)… Remember he was a compromise candidate and those who were earmarked didn’t make it as the ANC didn’t get any proportional representation (PR) seats.

“We remain committed to the coalition with the ANC as it is the only one that promises stability and progress in as far as service delivery is concerned,” said Khang.

Sewage spillage, water leaks and collapsed water and sanitation infrastructure, according to Khang, is currently the responsibility of national government through the Section 63 intervention.

“However we are really frustrated as we do not see any change on the ground but money is being spent.

“There is no synergy between the three stakeholders, which are Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS), Rand Water and us (Emfuleni)… everyone is doing as they please,” Khang added.

Speaking on behalf of the Freedom Front Plus (FF+) in Emfuleni, Gerda Senekal described the situation as chaotic and fast moving to an unrepairable state.

“Service delivery in Emfuleni is non-existent while the irregular municipal decisions continue to be taken by the ANC.

“The municipality is totally non responsive to the community in a time of crisis and the current coalition partners are planning a motion of no confidence… that says a lot,” Senekal said.

She added that the coalition government has not assisted in any way to resolve service delivery issues.

Emfuleni is one of the many local municipalities which have been flagged by the ANC as troublesome and which will be visited soon.

Emfuleni had not responded to The Citizen‘s queries at the time of publishing this article.

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