During the past two months, many Krugersdorpers have wanted to know why the Mogale City Local Municipality was not cutting the grass in the area as much as they expected.
The News has published numerous articles regarding this matter. Since the last article was published, the Executive Mayor, Micheal Holenstein, has responded to the outcries of the community.
“It is true that the look and feel of Mogale City is not one that we are currently proud of,” said Mayor Holenstein. “I and my administration have not forgotten who put us into power and we are aware of our responsibility to ensure that residents get value for money in terms of the services we provide.”
Holenstein continued, saying that his council had inherited a dysfunctional municipality with high vacancy rates, poor cash flow and a number of senior officials who for political reasons, have gone out of their way to destabilise the council, to such an extent that it has been difficult for the municipality to fulfill its duty of ensuring service delivery. He said disciplining these senior officials was the responsibility of the Municipal Manager, and for some reason the acting municipal manager was not attending to the situation as much as he should be.
Holenstein did however say that there was some light at the end of the tunnel as the new municipal manager will start his duties in mid-February. He also said most of the employment contracts of senior officials who are destabilising the council will expire within the next two to three months.
He also attributed the delay in grass cutting to the fact that new grass cutting contracts were not concluded in December 2016, “because [they] fell victim to the strategy of destabilisation and were not signed by the responsible officials for spurious reasons, resulting in the current situation. Remedial action has been taken and the final contracts were signed on 3 February”.
He promised that grass cutting will resume in earnest once the contractors are on site.
Holenstein continued by thanking the public for taking it upon themselves to clean up different areas in response to the long grass and lack of action from officials.
He concluded, saying: “Proving that this multi-party administration can deliver better and cleaner government than in the past, is my primary objective. We are beginning to make inroads in terms of dealing with the destabilisation strategy of the previous administration and I am therefore confident of success.”
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