Barely any people showed up at the Govan Mbeki Municipality’s Integrated Development Planning (IDP) meeting that was supposed to be held on September 19 at the Lillian Ngoyi Centre.
Terry-Lee Kleynhans, a DA councillor who led the meeting, said roughly 20 000 people will be represented by only six people who were present at the meeting.
The chairperson of AfriForum’s Secunda branch, Jan du Plessis, said the meeting should have been advertised in the newspaper and other platforms at least three weeks in advance and that was not done.
He also mentioned that the documents must be available for residents on the municipality’s website and this was also not done.
Kleynhans suggested that the meeting be postponed. She said the issues she sent through to be put on the agenda, were not on.
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Another resident asked why the municipality could not communicate better with the community and use SMSs, WhatsApp, Facebook and the newspaper to inform residents of such meetings.
“The municipality has our email addresses when they want to send our electricity bills, so why don’t they communicate with us? It would then be fair and consistent,” said the resident.
He suggested that the municipality also put dates of IDP meetings and other important information on residents’ consumer accounts so that everyone can be aware of such important meetings.
Aranda Nel-Buitendag, councillor of the Freedom Front Plus, said the Johannes Stegmann Theatre and the state of the Lillian Ngoyi Stadium in Secunda which she requested to be on the agenda, were also not on.
There was no date mentioned yet on when the meeting will take place.
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