Locals clean and fix up their towns

HIGHVELD – Residents and businesses are doing all they can to restore their towns’ conditions and to repair the neglect caused by Govan Mbeki Municipality, through cutting verges, painting road markings and repairing potholes.

Posts have been doing rounds on local social media platforms of more and more people jumping in every day by doing their share.

Grass cutting in green strip and closing of potholes were at the top of some of the many projects locals have been up to this past week.

Driving down Jansen Street in Trichardt every day is a complete nightmare and embarrassment for managing director of StanCo Motors, Mr Charl Stander.

He decided to fix it up himself before the road becomes irreparable.

“If we as a community do not do something about it, no one will.

“We had to make the decision to do our part and fix the deteriorating road,” said Mr Stander.

“In the very near future we are going to have to take responsibility and passing the buck to people who are not competent is not going to solve the problems we have. Folding our hands and seeing our towns deteriorating is not going to solve any of our problems.”

Mr Stander said people cannot wait until there is nothing left to then start doing something.

“If everyone takes a small portion of ownership, imagine what we can do together as a community,” ended Mr Stander.

As residents and businesses have been doing their part, GMM also made an appearance in the past week in the CBD area and were happy to share their hard work on their Facebook platform.

However, this did not impress the residents at all. If anything, GMM were slammed for trying to take the reign and not acknowledging or thanking businesses and the community for their involvement.

Comments from the public on GMM Facebook page were as follows:

Lody Welgemoed: Because the community pitching in themselves made you look bad?

Zahn Joubert: It is the public cutting grass. Doing a good deed not the sleg GMM. Don’t try to take credit for someone else’s good-heartedness.

Marie Churchill: Now you want to pretend you are working so very hard for the community, trying to keep us quiet after the water disaster, we are not accepting a few days of you trying to look good, not acceptable, bet you next week all the equipment will be gone again, next month no more grass cutting, who wants to take my bet?

Pieter Potgieter: Where is your photos of the business people that did this job for the past month? And the public thank you?

Chanelle Moorcroft: So you want a thank you now? Why post and make it public? If you wanted to make a difference it would’ve been done a long time ago without announcing it. Stop looking for sensation. Everyone already knows this is only an eye blind.

Paul Daintree: How about cleaning the growth up in the streets? All the streets are riddled with that! Is your team going to cut ‘grass’ and leave the mess on the streets? Or are they going to do a half job as usual?

Rhenardt Truter: You don’t see me posting video’s of my work that I get paid to do.