‘FDR’ writes:-
ONCE again I notice that the municipality has ignored a request for information that the Vryheid Herald has asked for. It was mentioned again in this week’s edition [March 14] that the Herald had asked for information about load shedding, and that nothing has been received. It was said that the newspaper had written to the Mayor, the Manager, the media office and the records department, to find out more about the threatened load shedding, and that nothing had been received back, and nor had the e-mails even been acknowledged. There is no other word for it than arrogance on the part of the people concerned within the municipality. Blatant arrogance. Do they not understand that the newspaper is the conduit between the municipality and the community that the community relies upon for information? Don’t they get this? Do they think they are above communicating with the people now that they are sitting in their air-conditioned ivory towers, forgetting that we, the little people, pay for the air-conditioning, the towers and their not insubstantial salaries. The Vryheid Herald will probably never find out the truth, but my feeling is that the powers that be in the municipality do not like criticism, and that the Vryheid Herald has (rightly) been critical of the municipality. There probably is not an actual memo, but I would not be at all surprised if there was an understanding in the municipality that the Herald was to be ignored. The Herald says often enough that the workers have refused to talk to the Herald’s journalists, and have even been forbidden to talk to the newspaper. One has to ask, what are they hiding there in the municipal building that they don’t want the Vryheid Herald and us to know?
