Govan Mbeki Municipality meets with IDP forum
“Any person or company awarded a contract by our municipality must execute his work and if not, we don't negotiate - we terminate.”
The Govan Mbeki Municipality held an Integrated Development Plan Representative Forum meeting at Lillian Ngoyi Centre in Secunda on Thursday, October 20.
The municipality, government institutions and private companies presented their contributions to service delivery to the community.
The executive mayor, Nhlakanipho Zuma, told stakeholders that the municipality terminated contracts with two companies appointed for sewerage projects in eMbalenhle and Charl Cilliers.
“We decided to part ways with the contractor who was given the job to build the wastewater treatment works in Charl Cilliers, as well as the contractor who was appointed to refurbish a sewage pump station in eMbalenhle.
“We are also working on a recovery plan with the contractor who was given work at the wastewater treatment works in eMzinoni,Bethal. However, if that programme doesn’t work, we will also terminate the contract,” said Zuma.
“Any person or company awarded a municipal contract must execute his work. If not, we will terminate the contract.
“Our community is suffering because of the incomplete projects and we as politicians are unable to give answers why the projects are incomplete,” said Zuma.
The municipal manager, Elliot Maseko, also held a presentation on the IDP and other municipality projects.
He mentioned 10 things the community wants the municipality to prioritise. These include the repairing of roads, electricity outages, the municipal billing system and sewage spills.
“The state in which people in eMbalenhle are living is unbearable because of sewage all over the township.
“How can people live when they are daily breathing in the stench of sewage?
“That is not a good environment for the community and we, as the municipality, need to do something,” said Maseko.
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“The Bethal and eMzinoni communities are always experiencing electricity outages. They sometimes have electricity for only two hours.
“If you combine Eskom’s load-shedding of two hours, with the municipality outages or load-reduction programme, you will see some residents go without electricity for up to eight hours.
“We know that our project to build a substation is a long-term goal, but we need to do something that will make the community enjoy electricity like other places within the municipality,” said Maseko.
Zuma said the purpose of the gathering was to consult with sector departments and stakeholders and to outline the needs of the communities and the municipality’s service delivery plan.
“This forum serves as a platform to encourage and allow community involvement and public participation in all the phases of the IDP review and budget” said Zuma.
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