W’aria Municipality making progress

The Herald joined the Westonaria Local Municipality on a tour of their various projects and witnessed the progress that has been made.

Before the tour, everybody gathered in the Council Chamber where Thabo Ndlovu, Municipal Manager, welcomed the group. Tokky Morolo, executive manager of community services was the programme director and councillor Nonkoliso Tundzi, Westonaria Executive Mayor addressed the group and joined the tour.

In July and August 2013, the Westonaria Local Municipality experienced violent protests, which saw the destruction of public property amounting to millions of rands.

This included the community hall, gymnasium, council offices, business hub, clinic, local business training centre, farmer-support centre, the multi-purpose centre (MPCC) and information hub.

The MPCC housed various government departments such as Home Affairs, Health, South African Social Security Agency (Sassa) and the local Emergency Services. The South African National Civics Organisation (Sanco) also had an office there. With the centre destroyed, the community was forced to travel to Randfontein for the services they were used to getting on their doorstep.

In the aftermath the Westonaria Local Municipality planned various projects and the progress made with these was shown to the Herald and other members of the tour.

The projects are:

• Bekkersdal: Sewer rehabilitation – rehabilitation and construction of sewer network

• Bekkersdal: High-mast lights – one high mast light is fully operational, the other one will be fixed in the next week

• Bekkersdal: Refuse transfer station – construction of ramp for waste disposal

• Bekkersdal: Waste collection – daily refuse collection from formal and informal settlement. Distributing 24O wheelie bins to formal households

• Westonaria: Borwa Mixed-housing Project

• Simunye: MPCC and gymnasium – construction of health and recreational facility and community offices.

Huge infrastructure projects are in progress some have been completed in Simunye, Zuurbekom and Venterspost.

They are:

• Boitumelo roads in Simunye – construction of internal streets and associated storm water drainage

• Clinic and library in Simunye

• George Sacks Road in Zuurbekom

• Completed clinic in Zuurbekom

• Library in Venterspost

• Ongoing MPCC in Zuurbekom

• Refurbishment of Hannes van Niekerk

• Upgrading Westonaria and Bekkersdal Cemetery