SEBOKENG – This was said during his visit to the Vaal region through Ntirhisano Outreach Programme on Thursday, November 10, 2022, Premier addressed councilors in their numbers from both local and district municipalities in the region.
Explaining his reasons for convening the meeting, Lesufi said the purpose was to brief councilors before running into communities without their knowledge on the plans he has to improve service provision.
“The importance of the meeting was to brief councilors that I am ready to run and share with them our plans [very ambitious plans]. We don’t want to delay and I am glad that the councilors have endorsed our plans.
“We just need to go out there, fight crime, create jobs and ensure our province can attract other investments,” he said.
Addressing the media following his meeting at Saul Tsotetsi Sports Center in Sebokeng, Lesufi said his office has activated a process to determine whether municipalities in Sedibeng cannot be combined into a metro city as the plan was already in place and failed.
The municipalities which are included in the plan were Midvaal Local Municipality, Led by the DA, Sedibeng District Municipality and Emfuleni Local Municipality.
“We have already put a team to establish the possibility of turning these municipalities into a metro. We tried this before and it was rejected. So, we are going through the reasons why it was rejected and rectify the mistakes. Hopefully when we have a single metro in this area, we will not have the same headaches we are having now,” he said.
Lesufi said the municipalities are missing on many opportunities including metro grants.
“If you are not a metro there are some grants that are meant for metros only like informal settlement grants, grants on infrastructure grants. Because they are not a metro, they are losing a lot of opportunities.
“We know there are other municipalities and certain political parties that are going to oppose this, we just need to work in the best interest of everyone,” he said.
Following the meeting, the Premier later visited the semi-completed Zone 17 clinic during the site visits in the area.
