As part of the Ridge Times’ commitment to voter education ahead of the November 4 elections, the publication invited all political party mayoral candidates to answer our questionnaire by October 12.

This is what Gracious Sibusiso Shabangu is the mayoral candidate for the Service Delivery Party (SDP) in Govan Mbeki Municipality, answered.

1. What are your top three priorities if elected mayor, and why?

My three priorities are reliable basic services, economic opportunities and accountability. Residents need functioning water, electricity, roads, sanitation and waste services. We also need opportunities for young people, unemployed residents and local businesses. Every commitment must have a responsible person, timeframe, resources and public progress report.

2. What will you do differently from the current administration?

We need to move from promises to measurable action. The municipality already has plans and structures; our responsibility is to make them work. We will identify failures, assign responsibility, set deadlines and monitor results. Residents must know what is being done, who is responsible, when it will happen and what resources are being used.

3. How will you address ongoing problems with water, electricity, roads, sanitation and waste collection?

We will put basic services at the centre of government. Infrastructure must be maintained, faults responded to quickly and performance monitored. We must also address losses, illegal connections, vandalism and poor planning. Public resources must produce visible services, and where something fails, someone must be accountable.

4. Residents often complain about delays in service delivery. What specific measures will you introduce to improve this?

We need to move from complaints to resolution. Every serious complaint should have a reference number, responsible department, deadline and outcome. Performance must be monitored and reported publicly. If something cannot be fixed immediately, residents must know why and when they can realistically expect action.

5. What is your plan for informal settlements and communities that lack basic services?

No community should be invisible to government. We will establish their needs, prioritise water, sanitation, waste, roads and emergency access, and work with provincial and national government on housing and upgrading. We will be honest about what can be done, who is responsible and when.

6. How will you deal with the electricity crisis, especially high tariffs?

We have to be realistic. Many people are unemployed and households are under financial pressure. We cannot simply tell people to pay when there are concerns about affordability, billing and inherited municipal debt.

We need a full audit of tariffs, billing, metering, electricity losses, municipal and Eskom debt and indigent support. Historical debts must be examined to establish where they came from and who is legally liable. We also need an independent technical and compliance investigation of the metering system, with the findings made public.

We must ask: Are we billing correctly? Are tariffs justified? Where are the losses? Are meters reliable? Is public money being used properly?

We need to fix the system while protecting households that genuinely cannot afford these costs.

7. How will you create real economic opportunities for residents?

We want every household to have a pathway to economic participation — through employment, business, skills, bursaries, apprenticeships or other productive opportunities.

We also want Govan Mbeki to become a place where we produce, manufacture and supply, not simply consume. We have mines, major companies, farmers and a local market that can support manufacturing and local suppliers.

The LED Forum must bring together young people, businesses, farmers, NGOs, workers, unemployed residents and major companies to identify opportunities for local procurement, manufacturing, skills and jobs.

Young people must have a place at the table. We want to move from simply looking for jobs to building an economy that creates jobs.

CORE MESSAGE

We are not promising miracles. We are promising action, accountability and measurable results.

Where there is a problem, we identify it.
Where money is spent, we account for it.
Where a system fails, we audit and fix it.
Where opportunities exist, we bring people into the room.

And when government makes a commitment, residents must be able to ask:

What? Who? When? What resources? What progress?

The time for promises without measurable action must come to an end.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the candidate and do
not necessarily reflect the views or positions of the journalists or the newspapers (Ridge Times and Standerton Advertiser) and the company (Caxton) they represent.