The town has been plagued by cable theft and water outages over the past few weeks, leaving most areas without electricity and water for days on end.
Hardly a day goes by that residents of Ermelo do not experience some kind of poor service delivery, without any proper explanation as to what the root cause of the problem is.
Electricity boxes have not been maintained and it shows, as recently yet another box exploded in Jan van Riebeeck Street.
Residents have been complaining about the state of the town for months, but feel their complaints are being ignored.
A group of men trying to earn an income by filling the potholes with sand at the intersection on the Bethal road, are putting their lives and the lives of motorists in danger.
“These people are standing in the middle of the road while cars are driving past them, not even attempting to move out of the way,” a resident said to the Highvelder.
He added that cars must sometimes come to a standstill and drive around the men.
Filling potholes with sand is not a solution as the first rain that falls, washes the sand away.
Another resident added that if the municipality fixed the potholes at these intersections, there will not be any reason for the people to be in the middle of the road.
“As a person who carries the sentiment of both business and tourism, I am very concerned about the lack of service delivery in the Msukaligwa Municipality generally.
“As a community, we are facing serious challenges due to a struggling service delivery debacle with the municipalities.
“The lack of service delivery is crippling both the economy and municipalities alike, with communities regularly taking the law into their own hands due to their frustrations and anger over the municipal issues,” said Mr Athol Stark from Ermelo Business Association (EBA).
According to Mr Stark, service delivery problems have been discussed both with some of the current as well as the previous leaders of the municipality on many occasions.
“The business sector have serious misgivings about the Msukaligwa Call Centre who at times have been proven to give out contradicting information, and to directly mislead by giving incorrect information to the public who report problems with water and electricity outages.
“This has been proven on various occasions and by myself personally,” Mr Stark added.
However, service delivery problems differ from the town to Wesselton and townships around Msukaligwa.
While residents in town complain about the potholes, water and electricity, residents in Wesselton are in despair over the lack of housing, non-functioning ablution facilities and the sewage system.
This was recently seen when residents of Mazakheni and Steve Biko Informal Settlement protested.
The town of Breyten is also currently at a standstill with community protests and the root of it all is service delivery or the lack thereof.
The Highvelder inquired at the Msukaligwa Municipality about the ongoing poor service delivery residents of Ermelo experience, but no feedback have been received by the time of going to print.
