Ramaphosa is urged to accelerate services
Ramaphosa also stopped over at the R37 Driekop-Steelpoort interchange road project for an in loco inspection.
President Cyril Ramaphosa interacted with the Sekhukhune communities on Friday during the eighth District Development Model (DDM) Presidential Imbizo, themed ‘Leave No One Behind’.
The event, held at the Ga-Motodi sports complex, was attended by hordes of community members. They raised issues pertaining to service delivery, such as the lack of basic water, jobs, roads and electricity.
Joel Mphahlele, a resident, urged Ramaphosa to engage with the local mines. “We have issues with our local mine. They only hire people residing closer to the mines, neglecting other villagers in Sekhukhune.
We have to benefit from all the mines as the communities of Sekhukhune,” he said.
It seemed the lack of water was the communities’ major challenge.
Ramaphosa said the DDM is an integrated planning model for co-operative governance that seeks to ensure an integrated, district-based service delivery approach aimed at fast-tracking service delivery.
He said he had heard and accepted all the challenges faced by the communities. Ramaphosa promised these problems would be attended to promptly, and acknowledge that South Africa was a water-scarce country.
“Government has set aside billions of rands to address the chronic water shortages in Sekhukhune and elsewhere in the country. We are, however, saddened by the poor planning and the lack of capacity in the municipal infrastructure development.
“We are further saddened by the escalating theft of money meant to improve the lives of our people by those who are supposed to keep it. We are also not happy with municipalities that return money to the National Treasury at the end of the financial year for failing to
spend it.”
The Sekhukhune region has been identified by the Limpopo Provincial Government as a district with immense potential for economic growth, given its abundant mineral resources.
Leading up to the dialogue with the community at the DDM, government leaders from all three spheres have interacted with key stakeholders and paid visits to service delivery projects within the four local municipalities in the Sekhukhune District Municipality.
Ramaphosa also stopped over at the R37 Driekop-Steelpoort interchange road project for an in loco inspection.
