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Nkomazi flood victims accuse municipality of neglecting them

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Community members of ward 11 in Nkomazi, Mpumalanga, have accused the local municipality of neglecting them following the recent heavy rains.
The community had to make other plans to ensure their survival after much of their infrastructure was damaged.
At least 14 families have been moved to a nearby community hall because their houses were submerged in water.
Residents have been waiting for some sort of relief from the municipality.
“The situation around ward 11 is very bad because our roads around here have been excavated in such a way that there’s no one who is able to access their homes, including our young ones when they want to go to school they are still struggling.”
“Since the heavy rains, there has been no help, we think the problem is because we voted for a different political party, a party that does not have a huge following so I think that’s why we are being discriminated against,” says another resident.
The Economic Freedom Fighters has accused the Nkomazi Local Municipality of misusing money meant to give relief to the people.
“The municipality created a disaster centre at Kamhlushwa and hired a tent that was costing the municipality an excess of R40 000 per day, the municipality incurred an expenditure of R360 000 in 9 days. Other expenditures, in total the money that was owed by the municipality is R475 000, that money was spent whereas nothing was done for the people of Nkomazi,” explains EFF ward councillor, Mafia Fane.
However, the municipality has refuted these claims.
Nkomazi Local Municipality spokesperson, Cyril Ripinga says, “It is very disappointing to hear these allegations, they are unfounded and it is not true, it’s far from the truth. What we did was to get a marquee for a week because we had to set up a place where we were trying to assist communities within the jurisdiction of the municipality, it was at the stadium. We had to house all the departments. The defence force chopper had to land at the stadium because it was inaccessible at all the halls we were using so we wanted an area that is closer to the stadium to put all the necessities.”
The EFF claims that so far the community has been surviving on donations from private entities and not the municipality. Report by Nhlanhla Jele

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