Turning the municipality around requires active citizenship, says Makana Mayor Nomhle Gaga.
Turning the municipality around requires active citizenship, says Makana Mayor Nomhle Gaga.
She was speaking to a handful of meeting-weary Fingo residents who attended a Mayoral Imbizo in BB Zondani hall on Tuesday.
They were mostly concerned about RDP houses and title deeds, while the municipality urged residents to pay for services.
Once every year, the mayor convenes the imbizos to allow different communities to raise key priority areas before the municipality adjust its budget and reviews its Integrated Development Plan (IDP). The IDP is a key strategic planning tool for the municipality, in which it is required by law to get public participation.
The key purpose of the IDP is to ensure forward planning of projects and programmes, the alignment of sector plans and the integration of projects within the municipality and other spheres of government. It is a five-year planning tool, which is revised annually.
During the meeting, Makana Municipality Executive Mayor Nomhle Gaga reiterated the importance of residents' playing their part by paying for services. Gaga called on residents to acknowledge that one of the reasons the municipality doesn't have money is that many people don't pay their bills.
She said rates collection is an important way of generating internal revenue for the municipality. Based on its financial needs, the municipality has increased tariffs for the 2015/16 financial year. Electricity is up by 12. 2 percent, rates by 9 percent, water, sewage and refuse collection by 8.5 percent.
Speaking of water concerns, Gaga said the municipality had made strong headway in that department. She said in town (Grahamstown West) there are no longer water shortages. She said this was the case in some areas in the township as well. She assured the residents that water challenges would be resolved completely in two years.
This is the time it will take for the James Kleynhans upgrade to be completed. The group of about 50 raised questions about 377 RDP houses that are listed in the municipality medium term framework, to be built in the area.
Referring to the poor attendance of the event, Gaga said she knows that the people of Fingo attend meetings, but lately there have been so many meetings as a result of the looting that happened in foreign owned shops. While she understood that, she said the mayoral imbizo could not be postponed because of the municipality's need to adjust its budget.
Addressing the small crowd, Gaga said local government is made up of councillors, administration and the community. She said everyone has a duty to be involved in turning the municipality around. Part of this involvement requires active citizenship.
Residents need to monitor that municipal employees are doing their work and report them if they are not, according to Gaga. She also warned community members against illegal dumping, indicating that the municipality does not have the resources to clean up illegally dumped rubbish.
Resident Unathi Klaas said that, even though the rates increase would help the municipality, "we can't run away from the fact that corruption has happened in Makana as highlighted in the Kabuso report". She said a big problem in Makana was lack of accountability and proper implementation of plans.
Another resident, Nomazizi Dlepu, said her biggest problem was changing the title deed of her house into her name, a process which the municipality had offered to help residents with. Newly appointed infrastructure director, Dali Mlenzana, promised to deal with her problem personally.
Other concerns were about a recent Human Settlements project that the municipality had undertaken in an attempt to renovate the older RDP houses, by painting, plastering and putting up ceilings.
Mlenzana assured residents that the project would resume in a week. As well as Gaga and Mlenzana, the meeting was attended by councillors Mabhuti Matyumza, Ernest Louw, Boniwe Bonani Mthuthuzeli Madinda, Julie Wells, Xolani Madyo, Les Reynolds and Brian Jackson and officials Riana Meiring, Mandisi Planga, Scara Wali, Yoliswa Ramokolo, Noluthando Santi and Gustav Goliath.
Ramokolo said the next Imbizo is on 17 November at Riebeck East. Go to grocotts.co.za for a full schedule.
anele@grocotts.co.za
