PODCAST: ‘We tried everything in our power to fix Emfuleni’

Service delivery in the troubled Emfuleni Local Municipality, which is run by a coalition led by the African National Congress (ANC), has gone from bad to worse.

This is according to coalition partners in the embattled municipality, south of Johannesburg.

Coalition arrangements have been intensely criticised recently, despite them still being a new phenomenon in South Africa.

Several municipalities, including the country’s biggest metros, have been gripped by instability over the last couple of months, which has compromised service delivery.

ALSO READ: ‘Play the party, not the ball’ – Inside ANC’s strategy to destabilise municipal coalitions

Some of the metros that have been affected by issues of instability, include the City of Johannesburg, the City of Tshwane as well as the City of Ekurhuleni.

In the south of Johannesburg, the situation at the embattled Emfuleni Local Municipality has been worsening by the day. This has prompted ward councillors to stage protests in the municipality.

During their march to the municipality this week, disgruntled councillors demanded that Emfuleni urgently address issues of refuse collection and the resurfacing of roads, among many other things.

ALSO READ: Councillors threaten to destabilise Emfuleni unless service delivery improves

Emfuleni has also had its assets attached owing to the municipality’s debt to one of its biggest service providers, Eskom.

To confirm that the situation at the municipality is dire, even coalition partners have admitted that service delivery has gone from bad to worse.

Senior digital reporter for The Citizen Stephen Tau invited Mpho Khang, the spokesperson for one of the coalition partners in Emfuleni, the New Horizon Movement (NHM), to share his views on whether or not the coalition government led by the ANC has yielded any positive results.

Listen here:

The Citizen Talk with Stephen Tau’s Podcast is available to listen to on www.citizen.co.za.