Benadie says only DA can save Thaba Chweu

LYDENBURG – The DA provincial leader, Mr Anthony Benadie, together with Ward 12 candidate councillor Mr Nicko Janse van Vuuren, DA local councillors, activists and volunteers recently paid a visit to various areas in town.

According to Benadie there are multiple reasons for their trip to Lydenburg. “The first reason is, up until recently Cllr Sonja Boshoff was elected to parliament Thaba Chweu was my constituency and so I have a huge soft spot for Thaba Chweu, especially if we consider what we have been through together as a community the past years with the collapse of the municipality. With Boshoff’s election to parliament, she has now taken over the constituency from me, but obviously as the leader and former political head here, I still have a lot of interest in saving Thaba Chweu from total collapse.”

He said the second reason for the visit was to deal with certain service delivery issues. “Most of the problems are of course not new, but the one that has been the most pertinent is that of the landfill site. We have had several queries over the past couple of weeks since the contractor for these sites have withdrawn on account of non-payment.”

He said he had spoken to the contractors for the sites, Eco Mare Consortium and this service provider was ready to do what had to be done as soon as they had received payment.

“The situation in town cannot be allowed to continue. Why is nothing being done to Thaba Chweu? Because the premier of Mpumalanga, Mr David Mabuza, has got his buddies and cronies here and because Mr David Dube, who is responsible for the destruction of TCM, is one of his most senior allies. Now there are threats of four mayors who could get sacked and if I remember correctly, the mayor of TCM might be one of them.”

He said, despite this, the fact of the matter was that the administration of TCM is rotten. The town’s infrastructure had collapsed and there was practically no service delivery.”

He said Boshoff did a lot of work for this town and they had to continue to give Janse van Vuuren and the community the support as Boshoff progresses in her career.

“We will again approach the MEC and ask for the progress report for the turnaround strategy and what progress his task team has made.”

Benadie said it was clear the strategy was not working. He was of the opinion that the whole constituency ought to be dissolved. “We should kick out everybody and the DA with our seven councillors will resign and we will go to fresh elections. The only thing that can save Thaba Chweu is a DA government.”

He added that as long as the ANC governed TCM, nothing was going to change. “The little bit of survival TCM is experiencing is because of Cllr Farhad Essack. He is the only one talking sense into these guys to do certain things. He is the one keeping the business community on board.”

Benadie hammered on the fact that TCM should be one of the top tourist destinations in South Africa. “It’s a jewel, it’s a gold mine, but imagine a tour bus coming down these roads. Tour operators are simply not willing to take the risk with some 60 foreign nationals at a time in their care.”

“There is only one way to beat the ANC and that is in the election. No other way, nothing can change it.”

He said the DA was not there for themselves. “I don’t come here because I have nothing better to do. I come here because I care about the community, I care about what kind of life the people in this community could have.”

He said a public meeting would be held on February 18 at the city hall at 18:00. “This is a meeting not only for the residents of Ward 12, but anyone interested is welcome to attend.”