VRYHEID KZN: Residents march, but is it for service delivery
The residents of Madresini gathered at Phembukuthula Primary School, while the residents of Mvuzini gathered at the taxi rank, where they were all sang and danced while marching to their meeting point at Mvunyane River to hand over a memorandum of their grievances to the Office of the Municipal Manager.
Last week Friday (August 20), the community of Ward 17 in the eMadresini and eMvuzini area held a peaceful march to protest against ‘lack of service delivery’.
The residents of Madresini gathered at Phembukuthula Primary School, while the residents of Mvuzini gathered at the taxi rank, where they were all sang and danced while marching to their meeting point at Mvunyane River to hand over a memorandum of their grievances to the Office of the Municipal Manager.
The memorandum was read out loud by the convener of the march, Bongani, who shared all the things they are not happy and satisfied with. Bongani mentioned that, “First of all, we never get notified about project developments taking place in our community. We would like to know about this in the future. We also don’t understand the way people are employed in this area; we wake up to people already working, not knowing how they were hired. In the Phembukuthula area, the last time we had running water was in 2017. Ministers came in 2019 and left funds so that the issue of water could be monitored, but we don’t know what happened to that money, because we still do not have water from our taps. We don’t have roads here and the ones we have are not in proper condition. We do not have a clinic and there is a need for street lights as well. We would also like to know what kind of people qualify for RDP houses. We heard that there were projects that were supposed to be implemented in our ward and we heard that there were also funds for those projects, but to date, we do not know what happened to them. We would like to see reports of those projects, especially for the agriculture projects. We also heard that the councillor of this area is misusing funds, as she is the only one who benefits from the funds for the projects. Just like the Sphumelele and Khanyeni projects, where the funds vanished into thin air.” The building of bridges, a hall and food parcels were also issues raised at the meeting, as well as the employment of people within the area. The convener of the march gave the municipal manager’s office seven days to give them feedback or responses to their grievances as ward 17 residents. They said that all work, like buildings and bridges and RDP houses – must stop until they get answers.
Ward 17 Councillor TA Khumalo was contacted by the Vryheid Herald and she commented that, “I was not even aware of the march that took place last week. I was only told by the police what was taking place. As the ANC, we have addressed all these issues before, so I do not know where all this is coming from now. These people are pushing their own agenda; they must just accept that I am the councillor of Ward 17 and they must stop disturbing the work that is taking place in our area. We do provide service delivery to our people.”
A statement was released by the ANC Branch in eMondlo Ward 17, stating that the march that took place on Friday was not necessarily about service delivery; it was just people who were also running for council alongside Cllr Khumalo. The statement also mentions that this is something they are going to look deep into, because, as the ANC, they do not work like this. It also stated that, concerning the RDP houses, it is a programme that is run by OSS (Operation Sukuma Sakhe) and no house is built just because a councillor wants it to be built; the houses are built for people who are really in need in the community. The people who were selected to build the two bridges were picked by the Ward Committee and OSS Ward Committee, and there are answers at the War Room for that. Even with the building of the halls, they are built by the Department of Rural Development and AbaQulusi Local Municipality, and the people know everything about this project. According to the statement, Cllr TA Khumalo is said to be still running with the community projects and delivering services to the people.
Mr Landman from AbaQulusi Local Municipality received and signed the memorandum on behalf of the municipal manager, as he was not present that day. He promised to address and hand over the memorandum to Mr Bonga Ntanzi (MM) and the acting mayor of AbaQulusi, Mr Mncedisi Maphisa.
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