Not long ago the Mayor of Greater Tubatse Fetakgomo
local Municipality unveiled a multimillion rand budget during the
municipality’s Integrated Development Programme (IDP). According to Councillor
Johannes Phokane this budget is intended to accelerate service delivery to the
citizens of the Municipality. The IDP’s total budget stood at a whooping R 600
Million and it has been more than six months since this massive budget was
presented to the masses.
But until today
communities have not heard nor know anything about the whereabouts of that
budget. People don’t know whether the many promises made by the mayor at the
event are being implemented or what? Because the town, Burgersfort is turning
into rubble of mud and rocks, it is resembling a battered zombie. Under Greater
Tubatse Fetakgomo local Municipality, Burgersfort is stagnant, roads are
peeling off the ground, buildings are depilating and some are flung far apart
from each other. The is not even a single branding of the town, but the
municipality has a huge budget available. Burgersfort is serving more than
200 000 shoppers and visitors on a daily base, this people access the town
via a small and depilating road. The road R37 is a single lane coming into town
and until today it is still a single lane. They are properly maintained
streets, actually the is only one street inside town that serves as both the
main alternative road and a street for shoppers to access shops. This street
was recently poorly upgraded to more than a million Rand, but today it is back
to its disastrous state.
Why unveil such a huge
budget and still fail to fix a simple town? How is the municipality going to be
able deliver services to vulnerable communities if it fails to fix its back
yard? This and many other questions that others like me may have remain
unanswered till today because our municipality is unresponsive. I understand that its not the local
government’s responsibility to fix a national road, but its the municipality’s
responsibility to fix all internal streets and infrastructure in town, so
neglecting this is purely reckless and ignorant. Burgersfort has more than 20
active mines, 38 wards and a high level of commodity transit daily, this often
lead to traffic congestion, especially during month end. So to allow it to
depilate like this, so fast is not right. Burgersfort does not ignite a spark.
Instead it is broken, falling apart and development has virtually taken a back
sit. Communities are losing confidence in the municipality’s ability to deliver
services.
Wards are broken down,
councillors are no longer serving the communities that elected them, instead
they have politicised everything. If you differ with them, they label you a
rebel and overlook you and your entire household when providing services. Poor
ordinary citizens remain hopeless and helpless, but the mayor unveiled a budget
and still we don’t know how far they are in implementing the promises of the
IDP\Budget. The political will of the masses that elected the current
leadership has not been fulfilled, Greater Tubatse Fetakgomo Local
Municipality’s Burgersfort with its 20 mines resemble one of those isolated
Villages in Zimbabwe. I don’t know what
kind of contribution these 20 mines make in our town and villages because
everything resembles a “Fuck up”.
The Mayor and his ExCo.
must rise above pettiness and show some political maturity, begin this by
implementing the promises of the IDP openly, fix the broken town and stop
denying ordinary citizens the right to enjoy the fruits of democracy. Atleast
in that way we will know that we have a functioning municipality with a
dedicated leadership at its helm.
