Govan Mbeki Municipality’s executive mayor, Mr Nhlakanipho Zuma, met with the pastors’ forum at the Bethal municipal offices during his mayoral service delivery outreach program on Monday, October 18.
The mayor apologised to the pastors for the municipality’s service delivery challenges.
He said some of those challenges are caused by limited resources and vandalism to municipal infrastructure.
He said because of these challenges, some community members do not welcome them as leaders.
Mr Zuma said the municipality is talking to both their employees and Enpower Machite to build a path of understanding that will ensure that Behal and eMzinoni have stable electricity and a balanced load.
“We are working around the clock to make electricity stable for Bethal and eMzinoni.”
Mr Zuma said vandals are causing a lot of headaches.
“Criminals are damaging or destroying where we are done fixing in Bethal and eMzinoni, that includes damaging of minisubs and that has cost the municipality millions of rand.
“If these criminal elements can be eliminated, we can reach our goals, Enpower Machite was appointed by the Gert Sibande District Municipality to stabilise the electricity supply.
This include revenue enhancement or vendors who sell electricity on behalf of the municipality and to install the required systems, infrastructure and train our employees to understand how to operate our newly designed network, then after five years, Enpower Machite’s work will be done and leave all the work to us to continue rendering electricity to our community,” said Mr Zuma.
The mayor also visited Ext 11, eMzinoni, where the municipality is planning to develop and five water taps were installed by the municipality.
More than 2 000 residents were forcibly evicted by the Red Ants on May 27, 2015 in the area when the municipality was granted an eviction order by the high court.
Those evicted took the matter to court and obtained a court order allowing them to rebuild.
The municipality commented that these residents would have to face the law at that time, claiming that a magistrate’s court order cannot overrule a High Court order.
Residents went to court again and obtained a High Court order that instructed the municipality to engage with them to identify alternative land, and to supply them with a timeline for relocation to this land.
The municipality also had to replace and hand back any destroyed or confiscated building material and possessions.
The municipality and the residents eventually found common ground, however, some of the residents were not happy with the agreement.
At a council meeting in 2016, residents embarked on a silent protest that was aimed at reminding the newly-appointed council about the residents’ ordeal.
