Windsor Road residents tired of being ignored

Residents of the Lanwen Hostel on Windsor Road took to the streets yesterday to voice their anger about being ignored.

Hostel residents say they have been writing to the Mayor of Mogale City since last year, but have not received any feedback on any of their requests to meet with him.

Yesterday, they blocked off Windsor Road by burning tyres and barricading the road with rocks.

Police were called in and eventually started firing rubber bullets and using teargas to disperse the unhappy residents.

Residents want the Mayor to visit their hostel and answer their questions about the building’s upkeep, specifically about the leaking roofs that have damaged their property.

Another issue is the prepaid electricity, as residents claim that with R100 of electricity they get less than 50 units.

Read the initial article here:

https://www.citizen.co.za/krugersdorp-news/375130/traffic-alert-heavy-traffic-due-to-riot-on-windsor-road/

They want the municipality to change the hostel’s electricity supply from municipal electricity to Eskom electricity.

According to them, they have asked the Mayor to come see them on three different occasions but have not heard back from his office on any of these occasions.

Last week, they went to the Public Safety Office to obtain permission for a peaceful march to the Mayor’s offices, but their request was denied.

“We didn’t want to be violent and throw rocks at people’s cars, we just wanted to block off the road so that the Mayor would come see us,” said one resident.

“We have a ward councillor who is supposed to visit us, but we haven’t seen him in more than a year. We want to be addressed just like any other community,” voiced another resident.

They claim that the only upkeep they get from the municipality is once in a while when they come to cut the grass.

They said they want these issues to be fixed before the elections and before they become just another vote.

For now, everything is quiet, while residents patiently wait to hear from their community leaders who have gone to hand over their memorandum to the Mayor.

The Mogale City Local Municipality replied to these accusations saying that the Executive Mayor, Councillor Naga Patrick Lipudi had visited the area on several occasions to engage with residents on the various issues, which included erecting a four-way stop, installing a gate at the back of the hostel and addressing the roof leaks.

Everything was done, but the roof requires further work.

“We also brought in the District Municipality to deal with control of rats in the area. Further note that we are also giving our full attention to any other request as and when it reaches us,” said the statement from the municipality.

“The Municipality must however indicate that we regret that in one IDP meeting some community members disappointingly disrupted the meeting when we wanted to update the residents with regard to progress on issues they would have raised. This therefore created a gap between us and them to further engage as was previously done, with visible progress.”

They said that even though this happened, they are always ready to talk to the communities and are expecting them to indicate when they are ready for re-engagement, but not in a manner that disturbs innocent road users and potentially causes damage to property, which also comes with unforeseen costs to the Municipality

Regarding the electricity matter, the Municipality said that the same rate applies to all the communities in Mogale City.

“The Municipality will once again attempt to reopen the dialogue we used to have with them so that in partnership we can continue to improve their lives,” the statement ended.