New municipal manager vows change

The Rand West City Local Municipality (RWCLM) is proud to introduce their new municipal manager to the community of Randfontein.

The 55-year-old Thabo Ndlovu was appointed to this position on Friday, July 1 and he said his main role is to head the administration of the municipality.

“I look at the strategic level in terms of managing the finances of the municipality; managing personnel; and overseeing the service delivery department like infrastructure, rolling out of new infrastructure, and maintaining current infrastructure; but we also look at community services like waste management and public safety related matters.”

One of the main focuses for him would be to stabilise the finances of the municipality as they are in financial trouble. They are not meeting all their financial obligations because their liabilities exceed their assets, which include the cash that they have. He said if they don’t stabilise their finances then they can’t deliver quality services to the community.

Ndlovu explained they need to build the capacity of the municipality internally to deliver services, and one of the things is to make sure that the municipality has the tools of trade. These include reliable vehicles to collect waste and respond to power outages, and that the employees have the spare parts they need to fix all the things that need fixing, like water leaks.

“I’m really saddened by how the town is looking; it’s not the first time I’m in this town. In 2016 when they established this municipality I became the first municipal manager for six months before I left, and when I came back and saw the state that it’s in, I really was saddened.”

He has issued instructions and put money aside to fix the small things regarding the electricity and the street lights; to buy spares like bulbs and cables that will be kept in reserve so that a damaged cable could be replaced immediately. The same applies to valves for water leaks, and pipes. “We are now buying material for the road markings. Those small things will give a bit of confidence to the community that at least we are trying something. We might be in difficulties but we are trying to deal with the small things so that we can move on to the bigger things.”

According to Ndlovu they will be launching a service delivery programme which will target wards – they will go ward by ward so they can fix things like illegal dumping sites. This will be driven by the executive mayor.

“We are going to be calling on the community to support us because when we leave an area we want the community to be able to take responsibility. I want the entrances to town fixed, the islands are overgrown and we need to trim the grass, and water and plant some flowers so it looks different. Those are things I’m going to be dealing with with immediate effect.”

He said the community will be able to see a positive change in town within the coming months because it’s quite important to give hope to the people. They don’t have the money to do everything but at least they want to do things because it’s the community’s hard earned money that’s being used, not the municipality’s money. They know the potholes are a problem but they will start fixing them.

“The most important thing is they will be seeing the visible changes; it might not be big things but at least it will be a start so we can know that the small things our people are crying about we can sort out, and then we will focus on the bigger things.”

Ndlovu said he would like the community to know that this management he’s heading now understands the community’s frustrations.

“We understand their problems and challenges. There is a commitment from me that I’m going to lead my team in a manner that we are going to make a difference; we are going to make a change in terms of how we deliver services to our people. We might not achieve things as soon as tomorrow and therefore we ask for patience, but in that wait they must not stop holding us accountable because we can be complacent sometimes as public servants.”

He added that the community will see the sense of urgency with which they want to deal with things. As bad as they might be at this moment in delivering their services, he pleads with the community to pay for the services that they are delivering because without the municipality being in a good financial position they won’t be able to improve the quality of the services that they give them.