Mayor responds to Westenburg’s queries
The Polokwane Municipality responded to the Westenburg Community Development Forum's complaints that the Polokwane Mayor, Thembi Nkadimeng does not deliver on her promises made to residents during a meeting with the community on 30 July.
POLOKWANE – Matshidiso Mothapo, Municipal Spokesperson, said the mayor mentioned during a disclosed meeting with the forum and thereafter in the Westenburg community hall to residents, that the project at Ext 40 is not a municipal project.
“The municipality is not involved with beneficiaries or the process of deciding who the land claimants were. The role of the municipality was only to donate a piece of land to Land Claims as per their request.
“A representative of Land Claims was invited to a meeting with the forum and the mayor and they made their presentation and agreed to setup a separate meeting as the understanding was that the municipality does not have jurisdiction over the land claims issues and the beneficiaries thereof,” Mothapo explained.
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He added the mayor announced during the community meeting that council has taken a resolution to scrap off debt from all registered indigents in the municipality and also to remove surcharges.
“The resolution is being implemented and just over R36 million will be written off.
“The process is continuing as the revenue section has to deal with more than 70 000 accounts. It was also explained that there will be a roadshow in the area where the municipality will setup systems for the community to be able to check their account status and for those qualifying as indigents to apply. The date for the roadshow will be announced soon,” he said.
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According to Mothapo the commitment made was that letters will be written to Health and Social Development Departments and these letters have been sent.
The community and forum was advised to engage with these departments and continuously follow up in this regard.
“However, if the forum require assistance with arranging a meeting with the departments, the office of the mayor will gladly assist. With regards to the Westenburg and Nirvana swimming pools, the service provider is currently on site doing repairs. The pools have been experiencing breakdowns for a while due to old filtration systems resulted in sontinuous collapse of the system and the pools being closed during open season. The municipality has decided to refurbish the two pools by installing new filtration systems to deal with the breakdowns. The service provider is currently on site doing installations and it is expected that the repairs should be completed by end of October,” Mothapo explained.
Regarding the change of tariffs of the community hall, Mothapo explained that the mayor does not have power to change tariffs for facilities and that recommendations on how the facility should operate and tariff structure should be made during the IDP and budget consultation process in order for council to consider.
“The electrical department is busy working on fixing streetlights and high mast lights in Westenburg. Of the five high mast lights four were repaired. The team is currently working in Nirvana,” Mothapo said.
Roads being tarred in the Westenburg RDP extension is not in the near future as the municipality confirmed that they are busy with a road construction project in Nirvana this financial year. “The municipality is working on a road concession programme that would among others benefit all wards in the city. This is an operational and maintenance matter and there is a programme and the roads will be maintained,” Mothapo explained.
