President Cyril Ramaphosa is expected to deliver the closing address to the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) sitting in Port Shepstone on the KwaZulu-Natal south coast on Friday.
The NCOP has been sitting in the Ugu District Municipality this week, engaging the community on service delivery issues.
Residents have shared their frustration around water shortages, crime and the poor performance of some police stations in the area.
Service delivery concerns about infrastructure, gravel roads and unsafe bridges for motorists and pedestrians also emerged.
Crime
Police Minister Bheki Cele is appealing to communities to work together with police in fighting crime.
He was responding to concerns raised by residents of the Ugu district municipality in southern KwaZulu-Natal at the sitting of the People’s Parliament by the NCOP.
They are in the province to engage the community on service delivery issues. Community members raised concerns about broken relations between communities and police.
Cele says, “Relationships between communities and police must be improved. I heard the CPF ( Community Police Forum) groups are complaining, we need to fix it, that relationship should be cemented, you can’t deal with crime if police do not see eye to eye with the community, so we must come and fix that thing.”
VIDEO: On Monday, Ugu District communities addressed service delivery issues with NCOP:
Water
On Tuesday, Minister of Water and Sanitation, Senzo Mchunu said government has set aside R150 million to address KwaZulu-Natal’s Ugu district’s water challenges.
Mchunu together with members of the NCOP held the People’s Parliament where they engaged with service delivery issues.
Mchunu said government will inject money to address the water crisis in the district.
“We will come back with money after we have established the team to work on fixing water challenges. I think the money we can get is not below R150 million it might be more, water is life, it should not matter where one resides.”
