Dr JS Moroka Municipality in Mpumalanga is now feeling the pinch, following the irregular investment of R60 million meant for service delivery into the now-defunct VBS Mutual Bank.
The municipality was placed under administration in January following service delivery protests.
Residents in Phake village, which falls under the municipality, are now complaining about inadequate water and high-mast lights, including internal roads, among others.
They say the municipality has been ignoring their request for better services for more than 10 years.
“Our problem within this village we running short of water, if the government can just assist us, maybe we can try not to buy water the way we use to buy water, cause usually, we spending too much to buy water,” says one resident.
“We buy water every month, then we buy with credit because we pay R300.00, every month for the credit of water, and we buy electricity and food with the money we don’t have it is little money because I am a pensioner,” adds another.
The leader of Moretele People’s Party, Frans Kutu, says the government has failed the community since 1996. He says they have been engaging with the municipality on service delivery, without any success.
“People are buying water, whereas we’ve got the municipality, we’ve got the infrastructure, the yard connections that are not functioning, we’ve got the dam or the reservoir, but there is no water at all, so people are buying water from the tractors, the infrastructure has been there since 1995, you talk to the councilor, you talk to the municipality, you talk to the unit manager no one is listening to us,” says Kutu.
The local councilor, Ben Legong, says they are trying to engage residents for a possible solution.
“At the moment we are having the project at ward 30, that is taking the water to the storage tank, however, our problem is that the two boreholes are not having the transformers, as we are speaking the contractor is on-site, he just waiting for Eskom to install the two transformers, and then the issue of water will be completed.”
However, the Administrator at the municipality, Teacher Mhlanga, was contacted but declined to comment.
Siyabuswa’s Dr J.S. Moroka municipality under administration:
