Mankweng defaulters should be ‘treated as any other defaulters’

The debt of the Mankweng community was once more a bone of contention at the city’s Council meeting held on 29 April.

Democratic Alliance caucus leader in the Council, Frank Haas said when the Mankweng debt has been written off, the debtors’ book will look much better for the municipality, but the issue of Mankweng residents’ non-payment has been discussed in council for the past 15 years and the same old story has been told time and again, “but the municipality never seemed to get it right.”

Polokwane Mayor said public participation for the Budget and IDP process took place in April. Consultation with three areas in Mankweng must now start to take place: Civil society, business and government are the sectors to be targeted first.

“Time has been set aside to begin with consultations,” she said, adding that consultations will take place in zones, and consultation with 100 people at a time, “due to the capacity constraints of our hall on account of Covid -19”, will mean this process will take around six months. She reiterated that plans are on its way to first consult with the three sectors as mentioned, and then to start with the community, zone by zone. She said it is not easy, but that 5 000 meters are in storage and “will be installed once the time is right”. She stressed that debts will be written off once the consultation process has been finalised.

Jacques Joubert, DA Ward Councillor said that this issue must be solved, and Mankweng residents should be handled the same way as all other non-paying residents are handled. “Officials must enforce existing policies and they should be handled equally”. He said payment arrangements are not adhered to.

“Their household expenses should be analysed: DSTV accounts are paid, but not electricity. What cars are these people driving? They are abusing the system and those that can afford, should pay for services.”

He said that with the coming local government elections there is not much hope that payment for services will be enforced.

He said that radio talks can be utilised to inform the people in Mankweng, as was done with the budget and IDP process, as the debt will just keep on growing as long as prepaid meters have not been installed. “It cannot continue like this,: he said.

Councillor Sathekge replied that people in mankweng are not “too much urbanised” and the strategy of how to approach the people of Mankweng need to be adapted, as “they are not connected to social media and want serious talks to be done person-to- person.”

Nkadimeng said there are two radio stations servicing the Mankweng area. “We can try, but meters can’t be installed over the radio. Members of the community must sign.

We must just try and resolve it fast, not wasting more time.” She said it will be difficult to determine the spending patterns of households.