Dear Mayor, RAMRA and fellow residents …
I would like to call on all the 'little people' – we are people known to rise above challenges.
Dear Mayor, Rand West Municipality Ratepayers Association (RAMRA) and fellow residents of Randfontein.
My humble take on the happenings of 31 January 2020. Madam Mayor, I was most amused by your statement in the Herald.
You must really assume that Randfontein is populated by mushrooms to think that we would believe your remarks about the Eskom account in arrears. In a statement made to the Krugersdorp News by Silkonath Mantshantsha of Eskom it is admitted that arrears accounts were a feature, but refrained from identifying which municipalities were affected.
RAMRA, you are the self-proclaimed saviours of Randfontein. Your initial ideas seemed really workable and I joined immediately – something I rarely do. Subsequent performance is not really impressive at all. It seems that the original goals and ideas have been smothered by red tape. I also think that the much-publicised court case could have been used better – for example to initiate the following instead of annoying and alienating Eskom:
• Setting in motion a vote of no confidence against the town council
• Creating a platform for utility payments to be made to a trust account which would be used to pay creditors of the municipality
• Creating a platform for those of us who use prepaid meters to pay directly to Eskom
• Putting in motion a plan to sell municipality assets to pay creditors (the recent purchase of vehicles for R500 million by the municipality and the unused and mostly closed library spring to mind)
To be fair, however, it is still early days for RAMRA and I will be watching their future efforts with great interest.
Finally, I would like to call on all the ‘little people’ – we are people known to rise above challenges. Call on a little of that Mzansi magic that lives in all of us and start to make a difference. Also, use the tools that have proved so successful for decades to make authorities sit up and take notice – boycott, your vote and your finances.
