Mayor answers questions

Cllr Malatjie said unfortunately hospital issues are not reported to the municipality, they have to be reported to the department of health

June 3, 2021

Emmanuel N Mthimunye 2 minutes read

After the Soma budget speech, the Executive Mayor of eMalahleni Cllr Linah Malatjie had a private interview with WITBANK NEWS regarding some issues in the news lately.

About the issue in Ga-Nala where the police had to intervene with rubber bullets at furious residents regarding the issue of land, Cllr Malatjie said she does not promote violence, but there was nothing that the municipality could have done to force people to relocate from the land which they have occupied wrongfully.

She further said the people of Ga-Nala were given RDP houses between 2018 and 2019.

Cllr Malatjie further said that there are people who think they are smart, hence they sold the land to other people illegally and then they claim that the land was given to them by the municipality; that’s the wrong information because the municipality did not provide people with the land, it has reserved the land for township settlement and job opportunity development.

Following the issue of the vaccine rollout, Cllr Malatjie said that as the municipality they are aware of the traumatizing incidents that are happening at Witbank Provincial Hospital.

Many people are complaining about the municipality not engaging in helping the hospital with alternative solutions like providing a community hall or a mobile first-aid care vehicle to speed up the process of vaccine rollout so that these long queues could be manageable.

Cllr Malatjie said unfortunately hospital issues are not reported to the municipality, they have to be reported to the department of health.

If the department of health needs help from the municipality, then that’s where they will intervene as the municipality, but for now, there is nothing they can do to help.

People couldn’t let the issue of bad roads be swept under the carpet; therefore there are plenty of questions regarding the roads, especially OR Tambo Road because it is causing heavy traffic.

Regarding that issue, Cllr Malatjie told WITBANK NEWS that as the municipality they urge people to bear with them because they are trying their best to get that road done and they will be fixing other roads so that they could limit the problem of having tragic, horrific accidents almost every day.

She further sent her condolences to the families of those who passed away on the roads due to the issue of heavy accidents which are caused by the bad roads and she wished for speedy recoveries to those who are critically injured.

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