Peaceful resolution follows service delivery protest
The improvement of living conditions at MNS Informal Settlement was the focus point of a meeting after a service delivery protest last week.
The protest on Tuesday, February 18 was fueled by poor living conditions that include the lack of water, sanitation, waste management, electricity, roads and security.
The protest was resolved in a constructive manner with the establishment of a committee elected by community members of the informal settlement.
The committee will be interacting with Emalahleni Local Municipality, Department of Human Settlements and Department of Cooperative Governance on a monthly basis to discuss progress.
Mr Theo van Vuuren, the city administrator wrote on the social media Facebook, “A team from the municipality will together with the community, visit the area and agree on these short-term interventions which will follow the model as being applied successfully in other areas. This includes the identification of areas where stand pipes can be placed, as there are pipes available adjacent to the property and locations for additional Jojo tanks, ensuring the improvement of the current tanker services management to ensure better reliability in supply, cleaning of the dumping with local labour and placing skips, to ensure we can keep the area clean, strengthening law enforcement to attend to the high crime rate and also to ensure that further illegal dumping is prevented, provision of temporary relive in respect of chemicals for pit latrines (agreeing that sanitation can only be fully attended to once the area is formalised), improvement of the main access road and also discussing this with the main user of the road, a mine, whose trucks also cause dust pollution and agreeing that electricity at this stage can not be provided until the formalisation process has been started and approved.”
He said this is one of the areas already identified for formalisation and the current negotiations on land purchases and development will continue.
“The community through its committee will assist with information, records of people staying there and assisting with information on people qualifying as priority for housing subsidies,” Van Vuuren said.
”Important to note that the model as agreed to above, is also the model we have agreed to with the committee of the big seven informal settlements end of last year and where we are already more than 80% implemented. We are also engaging with other informal areas in a similar manner and I hope we can reach similar constructive agreements which will benefit everyone.”
