POLOKWANE – When the Polokwane mayor, Thembi Nkadimeng delivered her 2015 state of the city address at the Jack Botes Hall on Thursday, she highlighted service delivery and residents’ needs as top priority.
During the address, she spoke about the municipality’s awareness of the challenges residents faced, and identified several key areas to receive attention during the next term of council.
These included:
• Increased revenue base.
• Provision of basic services.
• Maintenance and refurbishment of infrastructure.
• Land use management and sustainable human settlements.
• Public transport systems.
• Emergency, safety and security.
• Social development.
• Marketing and communications.
Under the the provision of basic services and the maintenance of infrastructure, the mayor highlighted the following areas:
Water
Nkadimeng blamed the current shortage of water in the city on the increase in the number of households in the city and rural areas. In dealing with the problem, she said Lepelle Northern Water submitted an application to the department of water affairs to increase the allocation of water to the city from the Ebenezer and Olifantspoort schemes.
She said with an average of 10 water pipe bursts in the city, the state of asbestos pipelines continued to be of concern to the municipality.
In an effort to deal with this, the municipality appealed to the department of water affairs to request funding to replace the old pipes.
“The department will make R180 million available to assist in water infrastructure and sanitation backlogs. The municipality will also upgrade the Molepo and Chuene-Maja water treatment plants at the cost of R65 million to provide an additional six megalitres of water per day to the city,” said Nkadimeng.
She further spoke of vandalism, old water meters and slow progress by some contractors being more reasons for the shortage of water.
“The municipality is committed to deal with these problems by fixing all the vandalised boreholes, replacing old water meters and to complete the unfinished projects,” she said.
Rural sanitation
Through the Municipal Infrastructure Grant (MIG), an amount of R40 million has been budgeted to construct more than 4 000 Ventilation Improved Pit (VIP) toilets in rural areas. The mayor said adding on the 7 217 toilets that were constructed in the past four years, the municipality would build 294 toilets in the 2015/16 financial year.
Rural electrification
Nkadimeng said to date, 83% of households in the city had access to electricity and that the municipality was in discussions with Eskom to strengthen the electricity capacity for the municipality to continue with the electrification of rural areas within the municipality.
Roads and storm water
She said R118 million was budgeted for the construction of access roads in rural areas. The municipality also received R38 million from other municipalities and this money would be distributed into existing water and road projects.
Neighbourhood development partnership grant
The municipality allocated R17 million for investment within townships. With this money, Sebayeng and Westenburg would be beneficiaries of convenience centres.
The mayor announced that a total of R191 million had been budgeted through the Municipal Infrustructure Grant (MIG) for the provision of infrastructure in rural areas.
In regard to land use management and sustainable human settlements, Nkadimeng said the relocation of residents of Disteneng started on March 7 and would be completed by the end of July.
She also talked about the illegal land grabs in the municipality.
“The municipality has appointed a firm of attorneys to help successfully defend land belonging to the municipality and land in which the municipality has a vested interest,” she said.
On the issue of public transport, the mayor spoke about the integrated rapid public transport sysyem (IRPTS). She said significant progress had been made in that affected taxi associations signed an agreement with the municipality to implement stage one and two of the programme.
On safety and security, Nkadimeng spoke of several crime and risk reduction awareness projects to contribute towards rooting out crime and create awareness within the municipality. She also spoke about newly trained firemen employed by the municipality.
On social development, she spoke of the success of hosting soccer games at the stadium and the success with initiatives like the mayoral race and golf days.
She also highlighted the importance of the Polokwane literary fair, the mayoral debating tournament and special focuses to be done on things like HIV/AIDS and TB campaigns.
The mayor ended her speech by thanking the people of the city for their hard work in making Polokwane the city of stars that it currently is.
