Umjindi mayor wants to leave a clean legacy

Umjindi Municipality executive mayor, Cllr Lazaros Mashaba, has vowed that they will continue to hold their “service delivery on a Friday” for the remaining of their office term. The programme, which they launched on July 4, continued last Friday and will be expanded in future.

Last Friday the service delivery on a Friday coincided with the International Mandela Day, which is celebrated on July 8, Mandela’s birthday, when people are encouraged to give 67 minutes of their time and of themselves to help those less fortunate. Madiba, who died at his home in Houghton, Johannesburg, aged 95, on December 5, spent 67 years of his life working for social justice.

Opening the “service delivery on a Friday” programme, Umjindi municipal manager, Pat Msibi, stepped onto the stage singing the popular freedom song about Mandela, which goes: “Nelson Mandela, Nelson Mandela akekho ofana naye – Nelson Mandela is one of a kind, that there is no one quite like him”.

Msibi’s rhetoric about Mandela appeared to captivate the audience, which included business owners and their staff members from Umjindi, senior Umjindi officials, junior workers and community members. Mashaba said they would not rest in their efforts to clean the town until the end of their office term in 2016.

“We want to leave a legacy of a clean town that our successors can build on. As from this Friday we will every Fridays for the next 16 months go out to clean our town, township and farms within our municipality. This is to indicate to the community that the money they pay for services is not wasted,” said Mashaba. Last Friday’s programme focused on cleaning Emjindini. It started at the robots in Emjindini up to various public spaces and buildings around Emjindini. The programme, which also invites local businesses to assist, will continue this coming Friday. The starting point is outside the Umjindi office’s at 08:00.