New council in O.R Tambo District says ready to deliver services to residents

The new council in the O.R Tambo District Municipality in the Eastern Cape says it is ready to deliver services to residents.

Political infighting and corruption allegations in the municipality, which lead to the collapse of the administration, have caused the implementation of the District Development Model to be halted.

Billions of rands were injected into the model’s first pilot project launched by President Cyril Ramaphosa in 2019. These funds were meant for a range of integrated infrastructural development projects, such as the building and revitalisation of water reservoirs.

The O.R Tambo District Municipality services more than 1.6 million people mainly in rural areas. Most people live under the poverty line and many have no access to clean water. Roads and electricity are also a challenge in some villages.

The new-look O.R Tambo District council says National Treasury has released more than R289 million for the completion of outstanding projects. Municipal Mayor Mesuli Ngqondwana elaborates.

“We are progressing very well which lead the treasurer releasing and amount of R200 million sometime December which made us be able to cover some tracks in advancing other responsibilities and once again they have since released R89 million which will be specifically going to some capital projects so this means that we are at a position now where we can start moving back to our responsibility of delivering on our capital projects especially that relates to water.”

Residents say they want water and sanitation projects to be finalized. Ntombifikile Maya and Bongiwe Cenga say the situation on the ground needs more attention from the municipality.

“We started settling in this area in 2013, we do not have roads, we do not have water, the road you see now is much better than the ones in this village, it is because the villagers had to contribute R500 per household to fix it, we cannot drive on it, we do not have access to clean water, we do not have toilets, we are really deserted.”

“Our main challenge here is water, we do not have water, we are dependent on rainwater, if there is no rain, we are forced to walk a long distance to ask for water from the opposite village, if there is no water from the taps in that village that becomes a major problem. Secondly, we do not have roads at all.”

Ngqondwana says they are working hard to ensure all services are returned to the people.

“We are starting the process of reviving those sites and then we will be engaging with the contractors to come back so that we can put into finality the completion of the bulk and it will commence with the reticulation that is the installation of taps to various communities so we trust that very soon people will start seeing O.R Tambo district on the playing field again.”

Residents say trust has been broken between the municipality and themselves due to the lack of services.