Trollip lists successes as bid to oust him looms

According toNelson Mandela Bay metro mayor Athol Trollip, the poor and mainly black residents who were neglected under the previous ANC administration stand to lose if the EFF’s plan to oust him succeeds on April 6.

Trollip told The Citizen yesterday that since he was elected mayor after the August 2016 local government elections, the DA had improved people’s living conditions by building new infrastructure and repairing old buildings throughout the metropolitan area.

The metro had delivered 346 social housing units and 2 188 RDP houses to the many formerly houseless township residents and ensured that 601 informal households were moved to serviced sites.

Under his leadership, the municipality tarred 34 township roads during this period – a total of 10.2km of gravel roads tarred in 28 wards.

So far, 7 755 bucket toilets, which is nearly half the existing number, had been replaced with innovative sanitation solutions. About 12 000 people were benefiting from water and sanitation provided by the municipality.

“All the households on surveyed sites now have access to electricity and all households on the urban edge have weekly refuse collection,” Trollip said.

A total of 5 439 expanded public works programme jobs were created, with 1 534 in the municipality, which had also implemented a permit system for informal traders.

Many streets were in a state of disrepair in townships and in some parts of the city when the DA took over. A total of 646 new lights, 69 main road streetlights and 204 residential area lights were installed or repaired.

The city had deployed 116 police officers and opened two satellite police stations to fight crime. Shotspotter, an antigang technology, had been piloted in a 1.5km radius in Helenvale, which had resulted in a 90% reduction in gunshots and 23 arrests within 90 days.

“The Thusong Customer Care Centre in Motherwell has been completed and opened after six years of slow or no progress under the ANC. Upgrades, completions and new fields have been implemented at six sports facilities, all in township wards,” Trollip said.

The EFF wants to hand the city back to the ANC after the public voted against the party because of inept governance and corruption in 2016.

Trollip said under the ANC, the metro would revert to being an underperformer that always required national government intervention in housing projects, due to corruption.

But two residents disagreed. Nomonde Ngqungwana and Mlungisi Jali from Joe Slovo in Port Elizabeth said nothing had changed under the DA.

Ngqungwana said the metro issued inexplicably high water bills, but did not address their grievances.

Jali complained about blocked drains, water leaks and numerous other problems in the area that were not dealt with.

“It was better under the ANC than the DA for us,” he added.

ANC spokesperson Gift Ngqondi said the ANC obviously supported the motion of no confidence against Trollip. He added that service delivery in black townships was being neglected because of the DA’s disregard for the poor.

Ngqondi said many residents’ water and electricity had been disconnected and they had had to pay reconnection fees, and rubbish was piling up in the streets.

“The metro has been one of the least equal parts of the country, as reported recently. Assistance to the poor has been reviewed by the DA,” Ngqondi said.

– ericn@citizen.co.za

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