Ancyl in Sekhukhune wants David Magabe to step down

BURGERSFORT – The ANC Youth League (Ancyl) in the Sekhukhune region has accused the district’s executive mayor, Cllr David Magabe of disregarding the local youth.

The league’s regional executive committee (REC) issued a media statement demanding that Magabe and the municipal manager (MM), Ms Mapule Mokoko be removed from their positions.

“Since the Magabe’s appointment, he has failed to locate youth development at the centre of the Sekhukhune District Municipality’s (SDM) plan. He has also failed to appoint a officer to be responsible for facilitating youth development in Sekhukhune. It is our view, as the regional Ancyl, that he doesn’t have the interests of young people at heart,” the statement read.

Members of Ancyl also accused Magabe and Mokoko of failing to come up with contingency plans to provide clean, potable water.

“Under their leadership, the municipality lived up to its responsibility of providing people with water,” the statement read.

They called on the ANC’s Limpopo leadership to remove Magabe and Mokoko as representatives of SDM, saying they turned it into “a recruitment agency of those who reside in Gauteng and Mpumalanga provinces.”

“The only things they care about, are lawlessness, corruption and looting of state tenders,” the spokesman, Mr Vusi Ntuli said.

They called on the SDM to appoint a youth officer and to establish a directorate to mainstream development in the district. They called on other local municipalities to set aside not less than R1 million for youth development and a further R1 million for education and skills development (bursaries and internships). They threatened to embark on a strike if Magabe and Mokoko are not removed as leaders of the municipality.

Magabe responded via SDM spokesman, Mr Willy Mosoma, who reiteraited that the municipality was focused on improving the lives of the youth, women, the disabled and the elderly.

“It has since its establishment approved the allocation of bursaries to needy students as one of its social responsibilities. Since the 2012/13 financial year to date, a total of 48 students benefit from SDM’s bursary scheme and the total amount spent is R4,7 million. The beneficiaries are identified through a transparent selection system and are mainly studying information-technology, finance- and engineering-related courses,” Mosoma said.

He added that most managerial positions at the municipality were headed by the youth. “The CFO, director for the economic development and most of our managers were employed as youngsters and they only recently graduated from that age bracket, 85 per cent of our staff members are young people.”

Mosoma said SDM was distancing itself from the allegations that it recruited people from Gauteng and Mpumalanga.

“This statement might be misinterpreted as xenophobic and therefore amounting to hate speech, tribalism or regionalism. However, we wish to state on record that like all the equity stipulations within our constitution, SDM abides by the employment equity act with a sense of biasness in favour of the people of Sekhukhune, hence it has recorded 95 per cent employment of the people. We record this achievement quite aware that we did not segregate,” he concluded.