Resident seeks urgent intervention

Madam – I would like to address our mayor through the medium of your paper:

Mr. Mayor, I, together with the majority of the citizens of this our beautiful town of Newcastle would like to applaud you on the excellent work that you are doing. In many ways you have changed the face of this town, and for a young man, you seem balanced and a people’s person!

However, there is something very important that your administration has swept under the carpet! This, Mr. Mayor, will forever remain a dark stain on your almost impeccable reign! Our Provincial hospital! We are not requesting one to be built for Newcastle west, but if you notice, we do have the building already standing, but for some mysterious reason our sickly, old, and poor citizens have been sabotaged into being compelled to accept the vicious fact that to receive medical help and treatment, we have to travel to Madadeni.

Not only is this venture costly for most, but the conditions and treatment there (by the testimonies of many), can be very deplorable at times!

Napoleon Bonaparte once stated: “The world suffers a lot, not because of the violence of bad people, but because of the silence of good people.” Could it be Mr Mayor, that you were placed in this prestigious position for a time such as this?

You are our voice to Government to convince them to re-instate and re-equip our Provincial hospital as a fully functional facility for the health and well-being of our ailing people.

Needless to mention, the people of any country, city or town expect to be protected, and to have easy access to affordable and prompt healthcare! Mr Mayor, when you and your retinue made numerous trips to different countries, “to attract investors” to our country and town, how is it that you failed to solicit financial assistance to better equip our hospital?

If this need was first and foremost on your agenda when visiting abroad, even if you’ll ate king prawns in a five star hotel in Bangkok, we, the taxpayers would not have been bothered by it!

Finally, we note the beautiful municipal buildings that have been erected, and we know that this did not come cheaply, and we also know that we paid for more than we realise, be it in the name of “estimated meter readings” or “a shortage of workers” we know that our utility bills were inflated at times to fund something somewhere.

Yes, we can fool some of the people some of the time, but we cannot fool all of the people all of the time. Finally, the need for Newcastle west to have its own fully equipped and fully functional Provincial Hospital cannot be overemphasised. Just as funds for all these municipal buildings came from somewhere, Mr Mayor, why not adopt the same ideas and strategies in getting our hospital up and running?

Then I believe that one day when you bow out of office, you would leave a precious and lasting legacy; for it is better to heal than to hurt!

Supporter for our Provincial Hospital

Response from Mayor, Afzul Rehman:

Thank you for the opportunity to respond. Firstly I thank you for the kind words of appreciation in our efforts to create a model city. We have done our utmost to build new infrastructure and upgrade old ones to make sure that the citizens of Newcastle live and work in a beautiful environment.

However, your comments around the new building is not justified. The financial statements of the municipality is well audited by the Auditor General and we are governed by various legislation and other bodies, amongst other, the National Electricity regulator of SA! They provide oversight into our tarrif of charges and billing.

There are no charges that you paid for “more than you realise”. There is no conspiracy theory here. If you are able to look at council’s budget, you will be able to see clearly where the monies came from.

Your assertion that I travelled on numerous trips bears reference. Whilst I don’t apologise for our council’s marketing strategy, I must remind the writer that my predecessors travelled far more than my administration. The municipality had its own marketing company and at some stage even had offices in China.

Whilst I don’t want to comment on your king prawn statement, I want to dispute the insinuation that we are living it up at council’s expense. We are a leader in cost cutting in government, one of which the decision that we pay for our own meals at council and other meetings.

The Newcastle Provincial Hospital is just that, a provincial hospital. I am the leader of Newcastle LOCAL council. This is a separate sphere of government. I believe you are unfairly laying a responsibility on my shoulders; a responsibility I don’t have the power to deal with. I have said, ad nauseum, that the hospital does not fall within my jurisdiction. I have made my feelings known to province, but the decision was taken regardless, as it is their facility.

I doubt my legacy can be built on something I do not have the power to change. May history judge me on the change I was able to implement within my powers.