Burning issues were discussed during a marathon council meeting that spanned thirteen hours last Thursday.
Councillors robustly discussed several contentious issues affecting NW 405 Municipality. One of them was the old municipal rental houses in Promosa. The municipality wants to allocate them to the people first and let them pay for the services afterwards. The municipality has also offered to replace the old asbestos roofs and write off the outstanding rent owed by the tenants.
This did not sit well with Fanie du Toit of the Freedom Front Plus, however. He accused the ANC of being ‘one of the major causes for the deterioration of Potchefstroom’s economy and encouraging a culture of non-payment’.
He says the houses are currently virtually rent-free and are being sold to the current “tenants” for only one rand (R1).
In the interest of taxpayers, Du Toit says the FF Plus wanted to know how many of these homes would be sold for a rand, and the rand value of the outstanding debt of the surrounding households that was going to be written off.
The ANC could not provide any answers even though it is important to know how this will affect the taxpayers of Potchefstroom. The FF Plus pointed out during the council meeting that the 405 Municipality previously had a 92 per cent rate of payment of municipal accounts that has dropped to about 83 per cent over the past three months.
The DA’s Chris Landsberg also raised concerns that the municipal reserves are being depleted. He says there used to be about R300 million in the municipal reserves but this has now dropped to as low as R170 million.
Another issue that continues to haunt the council is the tender of the Sarafina stadium. The DA says a staggering R7 million has already been spent on the project with nothing to show for it.
The opposition also raised issues surrounding the sewerage in NW405, particularly in ward 3, and the deteriorating infrastructure in ward 24. The opposition and the executive mayor all agreed that there are not enough plumbers in the city to deal with the burst pipes.
About 154 posts are vacant in the municipality; the opposition has asked for them to be filled to address the crippling staff shortages.
Other issues were discussed in a closed session that ended at about 22:00.
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