Angry residents voice their concerns and dissatisfaction to GTM at meeting

The much-anticipated meeting was held with the police in attendance and was organised by opposition parties in the GTM council. GTM mayor, Gerson Molapisane, executive committee members as well as officials in key positions such as water and electricity were in attendance. The meeting started with a presentation by Henk Minnie, a former GTM official, and resident of Sentra Park, blaming the GTM for a lack of communication. “There is no reporting back to residents when a problem is reported. It is indicative of poor planning, no planning, or bad planning,” Minnie said.

He asked for a formal help desk to be established with reference numbers to make sure complaints are followed up. He also touched on issues such as indiscriminate load-shedding, an inefficient building inspectorate, lack of road maintenance, upgrading of asbestos water pipes, the unaudited Blue Dot water status of the town, and the protection of mini-substations. He demanded the GTM start a project to protect substations against vandalism causing outages. Ben van Coller of Letsitele lambasted GTM for inefficient infrastructure maintenance, calling it a disgrace. He referred to an incident where a resident went without power for two weeks before it was fixed.

He said that the IDP meeting, where residents can give input on the budget for the coming year was recently held on a Sunday morning when most were in church or unavailable. Van Coller also referred to the theft of water by tankers, saying that in Letsitele they have managed to get the issue under control. He suggested that Tzaneen gets a mandate to protect the hydrants in town. Van Coller called out the municipality’s human resources department. According to him, they are unwilling to follow up on complaints about alleged fraudulent activities by officials. He said he reported cases to them in January and February, but no investigations have been carried out.

Also read: Mopani District Municipality owes GTM R280 million

He applauded the director of electricity in the GTM, Freedom Mthetwa, saying he has studied the load-shedding schedules carefully and that it adheres precisely to Eskom’s instructions. Other speakers included among others Richard Bouwer of AfriForum and Elmar Prinsloo, a local architect. All speakers gave accounts of poor service delivery and their displeasure with the decay in and around town. Speakers were met with support from the audience applauding their inputs. A point of order was granted to a resident of Flora Park. He questioned the rotation schedule for load-shedding and the lack of water in the suburb.

He was supported by a large contingent from Flora Park who demanded that GTM fix streetlights and erect speedbumps to curb speeding. They blamed the lack of streetlights for ongoing criminal activity and the depreciation of their properties. On this, the mayor promised Flora Park residents that all streetlights were to be repaired by Friday (May 19) and that speedbumps were to be constructed by this Friday (May 26). “We used to be the town of the year, now the gardens are unattended and neglected,” said Natalie Moss. On this, the mayor responded that it is important to keep parks neat and clean as it makes a good impression and attracts investors.

Noise pollution, drugs, prostitution, littering, the lack of street names, potholes, unkept parks, and the four-hour load-shedding intervals were also raised. On the dilapidated Boulevard building in the CBD, after it was abandoned by its owner with outstanding rates and taxes bills of more than R40 million, the mayor said that his council inherited the problem but that they are nearing a solution. The issue of the Tzaneen Dam Nature Reserve was also raised. The mayor indicated that new plans are underway that will resolve the management of the reserve.

‘Ratepayers must get service’ says the mayor

After listening to the issues raised by residents at a meeting last week Wednesday on service delivery, the Greater Tzaneen Municipality (GTM) officials gave feedback on some of the matters raised. By that time many of the residents had left and the hall which was packed to capacity at the start of the meeting at 17:00, was only half full. The municipal manager, Donald Mhangwana, acknowledged the problems raised at the meeting during his reply. He said that the GTM is dealing with infrastructure that is 40 years old and that the ideal will be to replace it.

He said at the moment the municipality does maintenance where problems surface. He also referred to potholes and said that many roads need to be totally resurfaced. The head of electricity, Freedom Mthetwa, gave a presentation on how load-shedding is implemented. He said the GTM has to comply with the law and at times at short notice, it leads to an overlap of maintenance being carried out and load-shedding. He said that the GTM does not intentionally implement load-shedding unfairly. He was again supported by Ben van Coller who repeated that the municipality implements load-shedding correctly after he has studied the schedules.

Also read: MDM under fire for court case

The mayor, Gerson Molapisane, concluded the meeting by saying he does not want to be blamed for promises not being honoured. He then announced the installation of speedbumps and the replacement of streetlights in Flora Park before the end of this week. He also referred to the IDP budget that is currently available for scrutiny. He said the budget leaves little space for maneuvering and that the GTM has long and short-term plans for service delivery. “Ratepayers must get service,” Molapisane said. “I tell councillors and officials all the time that we should lead by example.”

On the problems regarding transgressing officials, he said that dismissing officials is not an easy exercise. He also defended his senior management team at the GTM saying he knows that they do their best. He then requested the ward councillors of wards 14 and 15 to arrange another meeting where proper feedback can be given to the community as the time had run out and many of the residents who had raised frustrations, had already left.