Mayor has vision of model city for GMM
He said the municipality paid Rand Water for their current account and is dealing with the historical debt.
SECUNDA – According to the Govan Mbeki Municipality Mayor Nhlakanipho Zuma, the GMM is moving toward its goal of being a model city.
Zuma said their purpose is to invest in revenue-based infrastructure. He said the municipality is improving the infrastructure and residents now have access to services, such as electricity in eMbalenhle.
“We call on communities to pay for what they get because their electricity is now uninterrupted. We are rolling out a meter installation programme and aim to install 5 000 meters. We are also reprograming the old ones to ensure that they run properly,” said Zuma.
Zuma said they are also changing their security codes.
He said the municipality’s revenue collection is improving but is not consistent. He pleaded with residents to take advantage of the municipality’s repayment incentive which will lapse this year.
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Zuma said they are not going to run it again in the next four years because it is a twelve-month programme aimed at relieving consumers of their debts.
He also said the municipality paid its current Rand Water account and is in the process of paying the historical debt.
The Eskom accounts are still a nightmare because most of the GMM’s budget is directed at paying off debt, not renewing electricity infrastructure.
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At the same time, the GMM’s population is booming. The area is growing rapidly and shows a population growth of 3.3 %.
“This means a serious need for services that must be available. We prioritise maintenance and give access to the new infrastructure.
“However, vandalism is a challenge. We spend too much on the maintenance of vandalised infrastructure.
”We spent more than R5m to fix the vandalised eMbalenhle water treatment plant in our previous financial year.
”The infrastructure was not old, which means we had to add new infrastructure on top of another infrastructure. That is where we are losing,” said Zuma.
