Mams residents concerns over flat rate payments
Mamelodi residents are invited to a feedback meeting with Tshwane mayor Solly Msimanga at the Mamelodi West Community Hall on 18 November.
Mamelodi residents are invited to a feedback meeting with Tshwane mayor Solly Msimanga at the Mamelodi West Community Hall on 18 November.
The meeting will start at 14:00.
This is a follow-up to the meeting held at the Mamelodi west community hall on 7 October.
Mamelodi Concerned Residents president, Oupa Mtshweni said the purpose of the meeting was to entrench and spread the message of the R40 flat rate payment for municipal services throughout the length and breadth of Mamelodi and beyond.
Last month the residents of Mamelodi were disappointed when Msimanga failed to discuss what they described as a billing crisis after some of them said they received exorbitant municipal services bills.
The problem had resulted in residents resolving to pay R40 a month for services – electricity, water and refuse removal – as protest.
They said instead of discussing the billing problems, Msimanga had discussed the metro’s development plan.
“It has been more than 60 years since this was our home and therefore we proudly claim to be owners of this land.
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But over the years we have been trying to sensitise those in power to that we are not happy to be treated as tenants in our own land.
The boiling point was in 1985 when the community rose up in protest against paying rent for what is rightfully ours, our land,” said Mtshweni.
The residents vowed to continue paying the R40 a month until the mayor resolved their problems.
“We informed the metro that we would pay R40 from 1 September,” said Mtshweni.
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He said the residents had been trying to meet the mayor since June to discuss their concerns, especially billing.
“The residents had followed procedure to invite the mayor but he was ignoring them. The first meeting was scheduled for 10 June, another for 15 July, 5 August and then 16 September.
“All the meetings flopped without an explanation from the metro,” he said.
Mtshweni said he had not paid for municipal services for six years because “the metro is robbing us”.
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