Some 350 residents of Soshanguve south protested over service delivery at the Union Buildings yesterday.
They delivered a memorandum outlining their grievances to assistant director of the presidency to Shemy Masheu.
Organiser Patrick Mokwale, said the residents had no other option because the Tshwane metro was not keeping its promises.
“We, the residents of Ward 39 zone 14, an informal settlement in Pretoria, have been there since 2006 without any service delivery. We had several meetings with councillor Naume Katake and she gave us promises that she did not follow up on,” he said.
“We have tried to meet Tshwane mayor Kgosientso Ramokgopa and he made some promises but nothing happened. We wrote a petition to the municipality requesting service delivery, then submitted a further reports which was submitted to the section 79 standing committee and up to today we have heard nothing further.”
Mokwale said residents had also met African National Congress’ secretary general Gwede Mantashe.
“He expressed shock when he visited our area and said he would deliver services to the community before the end of December 2014,” Mokwale said.
Mokwale said the community had lost 27 people because of illegal electricity connections. Among them were seven children killed when 12 shacks burned to the ground because of the use of candles. Four other children were still fighting for their lives in hospital.
He said when residents made an application for electricity the municipality sent them empty JoJo tanks and toilets instead of electricity.
“Police and ambulances cannot reach our patients in time because we don’t have proper roads. We can’t even bury our loved ones. We travel long distances to get public transport which leads to robbery and rape. Mr President, you are our last hope as our councillor and the mayor failed us,” said Mokwale.
For free breaking and community news, visit Rekord’s websites:
For more news and interesting articles, like Rekord on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.
