We are stronger together – mayor
The mayor says the council should not work as a favor to communities but through an understanding that it is the public's hard-earned money that pays their salaries.
“We are only as strong as we are united and as weak as we are divided.”
These are the words of the Executive Mayor of the Rand West City Local Municipality (RWCLM), William Matsheke, who delivered the first official council meeting recently.
On the agenda were the upcoming elections, commitments, shortcomings, and of course current service delivery challenges.
Matsheke first welcomed those in attendance but then wasted no time reiterating that their primary objective as public representatives of the people of Rand West City remains that of serving their communities to create a better life for all.
“Our council remains an assembly of representatives of our people summoned to drive a sustainable program of service delivery to our people. Ours is a body of people elected to serve the residents of this municipality diligently,” he said.
The mayor also said they have to take a good hard look at themselves in council and admitted although everything is not all sunshine and roses he challenged all public representatives to put their differences aside for the people of Rand West.
One of the major challenges currently facing the town is the provision of an uninterrupted supply of water.
“We have been seriously battling to provide uninterrupted water to the community of Rand West but mostly in particular Venterspos. We want to take this moment and apologise to the community of Venterspos. Poor service delivery is a non-negotiable responsibility and no one must be given a license to undermine the expectations of the people we ought to serve.”
The mayor added that since the introduction of water restrictions by the national minister, all municipalities were set a target of achieving an overall 15% savings in their water usage.
“The regular meetings convened by Rand Water have revealed that Rand West City is not doing well in reaching this target. After initially getting close to the 15%, we have now fallen back to a 10% savings only. The implications are that we are under threat of having additional water pressure reduction in our area.
“Allow me to take a minute to clarify a common misunderstanding on the part of our communities. A 15% reduction does not mean a 15% reduction of pressure at each tap. This would only be possible if every home had its supply line from Rand Water. Water is a very heavy substance. As it travels over distance, and if it has to be pushed upwards to high-lying areas, its pressure reduces.
“Areas that are high lying and at a distance from the Rand Water supply lines barely have enough pressure even when there is no pressure reduction at all. Any reduction in pressure at the Rand Water supply point, and some areas will have either no pressure, especially during peak take-off periods such as the mornings when we all wake up and start to flush toilets and start taking morning showers. Our challenges are made worse by the lack of water reservoirs and the poor condition of many of our Pressure Regulating Valves.”
This has led to intermittent water supply to several areas in Rand West City, with taps running dry for hours during the day and water pressure has been low in some areas. In recent days and weeks, RWCLM has been inundated with calls from residents who complained about the lack of water in their residential areas.
“We are equally aware that disruptions of water supply in some areas are not necessarily a result of water restrictions, but technical faults and gremlins in our water network. We are also mindful of the fact that electricity outages are also not a result of our failure – but the consequences of the dirty work of izinyokanyoka – who are becoming enemies of development and progress.
“We have witnessed a dramatic increase in the number of residents who chose to engage this municipality through social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Our accounts, handles, and pages on these platforms are littered with complaints from our residents about service delivery. Sadly, we have also picked up a trend that our officials would only attend to service delivery defects when the communication in our WhatsApp groups comes directly from me as the executive mayor or the officials in the office of the executive mayor. This is unprecedented and the officials in the office of the executive Mayor cannot be everywhere.”
Furthermore, the mayor said service delivery should be interactive, responsive and continuous.
“We are a municipality that employs almost 1 400 workers and on my way to this council meeting, I asked myself this question: Are our employees working hard or hardly working? As council, we owe it to our people to improve our turn-around time in attending to service delivery defects and our employees are crucial in this regard. In doing our work, we do so not as a favor to our communities, but through an understanding that it is their hard-earned money that we are paid our salaries with.
“We are assuring the people of Rand West City that we will resolve many of the commitments made during our last IDP meetings and are committed to improving the quality of delivery of services for the people of our city. We are committed to being the torchbearer of our people’s aspirations and we will without doubt wage a relentless battle to liberate the people from the bondage of squalor, inequality and social injustice. We remain committed to our true value of serving the people of Rand West City and we will be selfless in serving the people.”
