GRASKOP – Residents of this town showed no love for the municipality and its housing and unit manager on Valentine’s Day.
Dissatisfaction over housing and unit manager, Mr Kimmi Mashego drove hundreds of angry protesters into the rain on Friday. The demonstration was staged at the Graskop municipal offices, and while community members expressed their grievances while sheltering under umbrellas, Mashego could be seen in his office, talking on his cellphone.
A memorandum was handed over to the mayor of Thaba ChweuMunicipality (TCM), Mr Michael Mcongwane and MEC for human settlements, Mr Andries Gamede, who arrived at the scene that afternoon.
The protestors demanded that Mashego be removed from power stating, “he likes to dine and socialise with whites and does not look after the concerns of the community”.
Gamede told Lowvelder that the complaints contained in the memorandum were “small” and “not difficult to deal with”.
Locals expressed extreme anger at the fact that Mashego wanted to sell houses built by the Chinese Government to people of Johannesburg.
“It should be free and for us,” said Mr Elias Mashaba (60), who lives in a local settlement.
Only 178 out of 400 intended Chinese houses and 40 out 100 RDP homes have been built.
Mr Ruan Lottering, AfriForum’s organiser in Mpumalanga said, “The massive debt of TCM is bad in itself, but in addition, rumours are spread weekly regarding corruption including evidence within the municipality. We’re talking about an excessive amount such as for instance, money paid to friends of the municipality for mowing the lawn or cleaning a hospital that had burned down. A huge amount for renting cars is also spent, because of broken municipal vehicles.”
Graskop was once the epitome of a beautiful town in South Africa, but is now characterised by its poor service, dilapidated infrastructure, corruption, sewage problems, problematic dumping sites and potholes.
The mayor and MEC told the protesters that they would be given a response to the memorandum at the municipla offices on February 25 at 10:00.
ANC members told Lowvelder that they were positive that the matter would be appropriately dealt with by Gamede.
See the photo gallery of the protest here.
