Govan Mbeki mayor wants to see progress

SECUNDA – Ms Lindi Masina, executive mayor of the Govan Mbeki Municipality, said in the Council meeting that was held in the Council Chambers on Wednesday, 26 February that she wants to see tangible progress being made in dealing with the sewer challenges in the whole municipality, especially in areas like eMbalenhle.

“We need to declare once and for all that we will deal with the sewer headache with more emphasis to show that we are ashamed that some of our people are still living in horrible conditions because of sewer spillages.

“We will accept no excuses from the municipal manager and his directors in this regard.

“We are calling on all officials to pull up their socks and roll up their sleeves.”

Ms Masina said the door-to-door exercises that they have embarked upon have also raised a wide range of service delivery issues in the municipality, such as the bad state of the roads and what is being done to remedy this situation.

“We should also mention that the speed of a response to community challenges is still not to my satisfaction and I appeal to administration to address this issue.

“Our officials should raise the bar and ask themselves this question, ‘If you have a task to finish in an hour, why do you not finish it in 30 minutes to show the importance of speed and the sense of urgency’.

“This question remains posed to all officials to answer.”

Ms Masina, however, appreciated the improvements made in service delivery that they see happening daily.

She said the appointment of the three regional managers, Messrs Robert Mashiane, King Sihlali and Melato Michele, has yielded positive results as they have seen public works programmes in towns and townships.

“We appreciate the on-going fixing of potholes in our areas, because, as you all know, road infrastructure can make or break the economy of any municipality.

“I also want to sensitise the municipal manager to escalate the monitoring and evaluation of these projects by instructing his directors to be on site weekly to check the progress and to diagnose solutions to problems,” said Ms Masina.

She also appealed to the municipal manager and his team to ensure they spend municipal finances properly and in accordance with all legislative stipulations.

Ms Masina said the municipality has an open-door policy and that residents must talk to the municipal leadership to find solutions to the challenges the municipality is facing currently.

“We have been talking with a wide a range of stakeholders since the beginning of the year in order to find better solutions for our municipality.

“We believe that positive dialogue will yield positive results as opposed to demonstrations and protests which more often than not become violent and result in human bodily harm and damage to property.

“We would like to encourage our people to engage with us in dialogue which results in practical resolutions being taken and committees being formed to monitor progress of issues that were agreed upon.”

Members from the DA asked Ms Masina to take action against lazy officials.