By Anna Majavu
The Makana Municipality has downplayed abysmal service delivery in Makhanda, and adopted a new Integrated Development Plan (IDP) for the year which is unlikely to fix the city’s problems, opposition parties say.
At a meeting of the Council on 30 May, Mthuthuzeli Mabhuti Matyumza, an ANC councillor and Speaker of the Council admitted that service delivery in Makhanda, in particular maintenance of the town’s roads, “is becoming uncontrollable”.
He said the potholes right in front of the seat of the municipality, City Hall, had caused people to ask why it was that the council could not even fix problems on their own doorstep.
“We must have a contingency plan that actually talks to roads. We can’t go to [National Arts] Festival where we are going to swim in those – they are no longer potholes, they are actually baths now, they are swimming pools. This issue must be attended before Festival otherwise we are going to be the laughing stock all over,” Matyumza added.
Makana’s Executive Mayor Yandiswa Vara, first conceded that communities had complained during the IDP meetings in March this year about the lack of housing and water and general poor service delivery.
Photo: Aphiwe Ngowapi.
Photo: Steven Lang.
But after DA councillor Luvuyo Sizani asked how the council would motivate residents to pay for very inadequate services, Vara said it was not as if all services in Makhanda had completely ground to a halt, and people should still pay for whatever service they received.
“People do get water in Makhanda and we do collect refuse. There are services we are providing. We do maintain the roads. It’s not like there are no services. Even though there are still service delivery challenges, however our consumers are obliged to pay revenue collection,” she said.
DA Ward Four councillor Geoff Embling criticized the IDP, saying it was a “mere wish list” that the council had failed to budget for.
Of the total budget of R673 million, only “R35 million was budgeted for the ‘repair and maintenance of basic service and infrastructure’, i.e., 5.2% of the budget allocated to this category”, Embling said. He pointed out that “the astoundingly low sums budgeted for service delivery are a major reason why water leaks, sewage leaks, stormwater drains, potholes, and streetlights are not repaired”.
The Makana Citizen’s Front also said the IDP was unlikely to succeed because the municipality was already in contempt of the financial recovery plan that the Eastern Cape provincial government had imposed on it.
“That is an admission that they did not do well in terms of delivering services to our people, so with this IDP, there is absolutely no way they are going to do better this time around, when previously they did quite badly,” MCF secretary Ayanda Kota said outside the meeting.
The DA said collection of rates and taxes from residents, should be increased from the current 60-70% level, to 90%. But the MCF said it did not support a “neoliberal programme of cost recovery” for non-existent services.
“We are not receiving any services, people are driving on potholes, we are living on dumpsites, we are drinking water with E.coli if we do have water. Otherwise, taps are dry, They are not providing any services to the community of Makhanda. It is not true that we are receiving services” said Kota.
Speaking in the meeting, Ward Three councillor, Zanekhaya Hoyi of the ANC, claimed that the community said at the earlier IDP meetings that council leaders were doing a good job. “They were very clear they still had confidence. The budget is aligned to the IDP and it responds exactly to all the issues that are raised on the IDP” claimed Hoyi, even though at the IDP meetings earlier reported on by Grocott’s Mail, residents were deeply critical of the ruling party.
Ward Two councillor Ramie Xonxa of the ANC said he was “excited” that a driving committee would be set up to oversee the IDP. “Having a credible IDP is one thing and implementing it is another thing”, Xonxa said.
