Residents furious after councillors fail to attend community meeting

Contrary to their party’s manifesto to attend to community matters, the ANC councillors serving on the Umjindi Municipality shunned a meeting with the residents of Ward 7 last Thursday evening.

Ward councillor of the area, Cllr Mongezi Nkosi said the meeting, which was held at Emjindini Community Hall, was called to review the integrated development planning (IDP) for 2015/16 consultation programme and compilation of community-based planning (CBP).

But, conspicuous by their absence, were the other 13 councillors from the community. No apologies had been sent. Only Nkosi and Cllr Sarah Mabuza were present to address the residents, mostly residing in two of the oldest settlements of Emjindini – New Village and Spearville – which are underdeveloped.

Giving support from the council administrative side were Henk Schoeman, manager of development and planning, Derrick Ndlovu, director of corporate services, Stanley Nkabinde, traffic chief, and municipal manager, Pat Msibi.

Anger erupted when the residents realised that the councillors would not turn up. They accused them of treating them with contempt.

A resident, Lindiwe, said it was disappointing that the people (councillors) who had been chosen by the community were not present. “They show disrespect for us. We have councillors serving on a full-time basis and they are supposed to be here today, but they are nowhere to be seen. That’s why we have newly established sections (referring to Sincobile, where ANC chief whip Cllr Taylor Nsimbini resides) that are well developed compared with the old ones like ours,” said Lindiwe.

Former ANC councillor, Winnie Msibi, who also voiced her unhappiness about the snub, called on local residents not to deal with their frustration in a violent way. She urged the community to take care of the few structures available instead of torching and destroying them when protesting.

Msibi also lambasted the council for dragging its feet in allocating residential stands. “The issue of stands takes years to be approved. This must be a priority issue. The council must also allocate stands that are well developed. You find our children allocated stands but when they want to occupy them, they find that there is no proper infrastructure like electricity, sewerage and proper roads. How can somebody who has electrical appliances, leave his/her parents’ home to stay in an underdeveloped area?” asked Msibi.

Despite all the anger of the community, Nkosi did manage to inform them about the successes he has achieved for the ward and those that were still in the pipeline.

These include the upgrade of Makhanya Street in Spearville and George Nkosi Street in New Village. Emjindini High School was receiving eight ablution blocks and eight classrooms. The school had already been equipped with a laboratory centre, courtesy of Barberton Mines, and new community library had also been constructed.

Nkosi said current projects included discussions whether to upgrade or demolish the inhumane family units, street naming and upgrading of existing sport facilities.