The Kagiso community have been making some serious allegations against the Mogale City Executive mayor, Councillor Francis Makgatho, and it all started with fibre infrastructure.
Sipho Ntuli, chairperson of the Mogale City Concerned Residents Movement explained to the News what had happened.
According to him, a company was granted permission to build the infrastructure to provide fibre to Kagiso. When this company started working in January another company came and told the community they would be doing the same.
Ntuli alleged that the second company is politically-affiliated and was granted permission for this reason, despite not having the required wayleaves.
The first company allegedly will use members of the community as labourers for the project, and Ntuli said the second company allegedly will bring their own labourers.
Ntuli said the community was worried about the municipality’s interest in the second company, especially after they had seen a public participation letter from this company with the municipality’s logo on it.
Ask yourself, how does the municipality give a private company the use of their logo when they do a public participation, because in essence they are misleading the community. They are buying signatures from the community by saying this is a partnership with the municipality,” he argued.
After the first company started planting their poles, he said, someone came on Friday, 22 January and cut them down with a chainsaw.
Consequently, a group of community members gathered at the municipal offices on Monday, 25 January, demanding answers.
The News took these allegations seriously and reached out to the Mayor’s office for feedback.
Lucky Sele, the Mayoral spokesperson, said in his response that it was important to clarify that the Mogale City Local Municipality (MCLM) does not, or did not, have a tender or RFQ (Request for Quotations) process seeking bidders for optic fibre, and has not appointed a service provider to do the work.
He explained the optic fibre installation project is a private venture – the municipality or Executive Mayor plays no role in the appointment of service providers in any private venture.
Any private entity that wishes to carry out work on municipal property that will directly, indirectly, currently or in future impact municipal services, are obliged by municipal by-laws to apply for wayleave.
The granting of wayleave in compliance to by-laws is the role that Mogale City played in this process, which has turned into an undesired and potentially damaging situation.”
Sele said the company that applies for wayleave approval must undertake a public participation process in which the municipality plays no role, except for ensuring that the ward councillors engage during the process.
“This should happen before the finalisation of the wayleave agreement and before the work in the community can commence […]. The municipality did not and does not change companies on private ventures.”
So what is the process going forward?
Sele said all service providers have been asked to halt work, and the Executive Mayor has appointed a team consisting of Members of the Mayoral Committee and senior officials to mediate between the service providers until an amicable solution can be found.
He added it is disheartening for the mayor, as service providers are granted equal opportunities by the municipality.
People have resorted to unfair competition of wanting to monopolise the installation of optic fibre infrastructure. Accusations of assisting politically-aligned service providers and that the Executive Mayor directly appointed the service provider have now resulted in a turf war which has also seen the community members mobilised against each other – all this bringing the name of the institution into disrepute. It is also important to note that the municipality reserves the right to withdraw wayleave approvals, should the situation deteriorate.”
