The family of councillor Jabu Masilela of ward 6 in Mamelodi West are living in fear of the community who continuously threaten them because of service delivery.
Angry residents emptied rubbish bins and burnt the waste in front of Masilela’s house on Friday night after section D4 went without electricity for three days.
Residents claimed it was the councillor’s responsibility to make sure that there was electricity in the area.
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The residents marched to his home to demand answers for the outage.
Masilela’s mother, Sophy Masilela said the family lived in fear and bore the brunt each time the community had service delivery problems.
“We were forced to lock ourselves inside the house while the residents shouted outside. They even broke a window and a neighbour’s car’s windscreen,” she said.
Masilela said the community needed to understand that whenever there was no electricity in the area, he was also affected.
He said what happened on Friday night, was not the first time and has told the community that the problem was being taken care of.
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Masilela also dismissed claims by residents that he was hiring “his people” for the Gata Pele public works programme.
He said workers were employed via the lottery system and the Tshwane metro was responsible.
He said the lottery system was good because it absolved ward councillors of blame in the hiring process but was concerned that the programme did not factor background information on the job-seekers.
He said he has tried to meet the angry residents but his offer was declined.
Masilela pleaded with the public to stop harassing his family because his family was also affected whenever there was power cuts in his ward.
He was worried that one day the community would hurt his family.
Masilela said he was not responsible for the power outage in the area or the Gata Pele programme.
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He said he was not the first councillor to be harassed by the community for the same problem and residents needed to be patient after reporting a power failure. He invited the community to forward him reference numbers after reporting outages so he could follow up with the responsible department.
Mamelodi police spokesperson Captain Johannes Maheso confirmed that a case of malicious damage to property was opened by the family.
He said no one was arrested and the police were still investigating.
