eMBALENHLE – A newly formed political party, the Azania Resident Party (ARP), marched to the Govan Mbeki municipal offices at eMalenhle on Wednesday, 31 March.
They demanded that residents who have illegally occupied land at Ext 22 since 2016, be legally allocated the land, that the debt of all residents in the Govan Mbeki municipality area is cancelled and that consumers pay a flat rate for services.
The party also demanded updates on the progress of the Bracken substation project which is supposed to alleviate eMbalenhle’s electricity problems.
They demanded an answer when the municipality will hand over the electricity supply to Eskom.
“All informal settlements used as dumping sites by the residents, are also billed to us as a community because our municipality doesn’t have a proper plan to deal with waste.
“Municipal employees should stop directing sewer spillages to the informal settlement such as the greenfield area.
“This means the rights of people living in informal settlements do not matter and this must stop,” said Mr Phillip Mahlangu, general secretary of the Azania Peoples Party.
No one came to collect their memorandum from the municipality as the offices were closed due to a coronavirus positive case at the eMbalenhle offices.
Leaders said they were expecting the executive mayor or municipal manager to take their memorandum, but they were told that the offices were closed.
Mr Donald Green, acting communication head of the municipality, said they did not receive a march notice.
However, they have an open-door policy for all residence and if they received the memorandum, they would have given it attention.
