Vryheid residents are angry about the lack of service delivery from AbaQulusi Local Municipality. At a meeting in council chambers between residents and municipal officials a few weeks ago, the mayor admitted that the municipality was battling with several service delivery issues. Despite numerous follow-up meetings between community representatives and the mayor, no change has been seen.
Mondlo residents also recently raised their concerns about lack of service delivery. Mondlo Development Committee members stated that they have written several letters to officials from AbaQulusi Local Municipality, but they have not received any feedback to date. Committee chairperson Mr Mathebula explained that they met with some of the officials and promises were made, to no avail.
In a statement the committee released this month, it explains in-depth how the Mondlo area was developed ‘back in the day’ and how much rates they used to pay. Mathebula said they used to pay so little, but the service they received was good. “The people of Mondlo built their own houses. Although we were on the outskirts, Mondlo was a beautiful place to stay, but now it’s a mess! Everything is wrong – from the roads to electricity and water shortages that are constant. Honestly speaking, we need to know what exactly we are paying for, because even if you go to the municipality, no one can explain why we are paying so much yet we do not have any services.”
When new officials were appointed at the municipality earlier this year, residents had high hopes in terms of services being delivered to them. After 100 days in office, when speaking to AbaQulusi Community Radio Station, Mayor Sifiso Mkhwanazi ‘unpacked’ the things he has done and the things he is yet to do for the people. The mayor spoke about three basic needs in communities, which are roads, electricity and water. He said, “Since I came into office, I have touched on these basic needs respectively. We all know that the roads in Vryheid are not in a proper condition and I have to make sure they get patched. Although we are not where we want to be, teams are busy with road patching.” The mayor then spoke about the transformers, saying that when he started in office, there was only one transformer working and the other two transformers were not working. “We had to make sure that we repaired the one transformer, as the other one was beyond repair, so we currently have two transformers working. We are also faced with the issue of cable theft, which makes it impossible to deliver electricity to the residents. We urge the community to work with us to solve this big problem. In terms of water, we are aware that we had water shortages, but that was due to stage 6 load-shedding, where we had 11 hours without electricity and the level of water in our reservoirs was affected. This led to the water supply being affected as well. I know that the residents of AbaQulusi are not yet satisfied, but we are working towards delivering services to the people.”
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The news provided to you in this link comes to you from the editorial staff of the Vryheid Herald, a sold newspaper distributed in the Vryheid area.
