Mayor: Ralepane Mmamekwa.
Naume Phala and Ralepane Mmamekwa
Fetakgomo Tubatse Local Municipality (FTLM) has a new
boss. Ralepane Mmamekwa is back in town to resume the mayoral role AGAIN.
Mmamekwa was first elected mayor when the Municipality was known as Greater
Tubatse Local Municipality (GTM) between 2007/2008 after the ANC successfully
won the local government elections. At that time Tubatse was still a relatively
unknown town on the verge of a booming mining Industry. Mmamekwa led the
municipality as mayor, where he first experienced the wrath of the community of
Ga-Malekane after he failed to deliver basic services there. This writer was
told that the situation became so volatile that the mayor ran and left his
bodyguards behind.
Ralepane Mmamekwa was
again retained as mayor after the sacking of Nkosi Josias Mahlake. The ANC
council sacked Mahlake after accusing him of poor performance and coming to
work drunk. When he (Mmamekwa) arrived, the municipality was under a great
distress. Service delivery was slow, and in some other areas non-existing. Wards
went months without water; others had no electricity, Roads and Sanitations. Mmamekwa
arrived with great promises of turning Fetakgomo Tubatse Local Municipality
around, but the community saw the same pattern of slow service delivery, lack
of water, electricity and Roads normalized.
The was no change which communities
saw when Mmamekwa was mayor, except that their living conditions deteriorated
and became unbearable. His promises only benefitted the select few, presumably those
closest to him. One can argue that FTLM is not responsible for water services,
but the municipality was allocated R 84, 9 Million for water projects in
several villages, that money just evaporated because those villages are still
as dry as the karoo desert. In his speech of July, 13, 2008, he promised a
sanitation project worth R20, 5 Million, but today Burgersfort stinks like
hell. Some parts are so dirty you wouldn’t tell whether you’re in town or some
hell hole.
Mmamekwa still continue to
be touted as the man up for the job of Mayor. And he is back into the driving
seat AGAIN! On August,8, he was appointed Mayor of FTLM for the third time. He is
replacing Naume Phala who also replaced the recently resigned Mayor Choris
Phokane. Naume Phala went back to being Speaker while Ralepane Mmamekwa resumed
his role immediately after he was appointed. And word on the street is that he
is the only capable Cadre to turn things around at the Municipality. Let’s hope
this time he will do better than last time he was here, because communities on
the ground are crying for services and so far none has been coming forth.
