NELSPRUIT – The Nelsville Community Meeting held here last week ended before it started when community members walked out along with the ward councillor. It formed part of the Mbombela mayor, Cllr Cathy Dlamini’s, imbizo.
Before the meeting started last Wednesday, people from outside the Nelsville community arrived, wearing ANC T-shirts. The councillor for ward 17, which includes Nelsville, Mr Werner le Grange, said he supported the dissatisfaction expressed by community members and walked out of the meeting along with approximately 20 residents.
“It was a community meeting, not a political rally,” he said. He said the shirts were handed out to people from outside the area before the meeting. He accused the municipality of spending taxpayer’s money on making them, while the Mbombela Municipality struggled to pay its bills.
Mbombela has failed to address service delivery. This include treatment of sewage leaking into the Sabie River, the improved billing for services provided, for which Mbombela sent a delegation to Indonesia last year, and road maintenance.
Mr Joseph Ngala said it was beyond the mayor’s control if ANC supporters decided to attend the meeting wearing their shirts. However, since they were upsetting some people, they were asked to leave. Many of those who remained wore T-shirts emblazoned with “mayoral imbizo” logos.
Even before the event, Le Grange called the mayor’s plans to hold the imbizo in Nelsville an election gimmick. “(Her) sudden decision to host a service delivery imbizo with the residents of Nelsville is a desperate attempt to rebuild flagging ANC support for the May 7 general elections.”
He added that his party, the DA, welcomed the imbizo, saying it was high time Dlamini faced residents and explained this municipality’s failure to address the long-standing problems they had to cope with every day. These include potholes, grass not being cut, a lack of maintenance at parks and open spaces, the establishment of shelters by vagrants in parks, a lack of maintenance at Van Riebeeck Park swimming pool, issues with the maintenance and upgrade of the ward’s electricity network , street lights not working, illegal dumping and illegal street mechanics in Bester Street.
Dlamini told the audience on Wednesday, “I know this meeting is long overdue.” She also took the opportunity to criticise Le Grange. “The ward councillor missed an opportunity to address the community in conjunction with the mayoral committee, but he decided to leave.”
Mr Bheki Zulu, a member of the mayoral committee, said before Dlamini spoke, “There is a perception that we are taking the executive to Nelsville for electioneering purposes. This is not true.”
