On Tuesday morning the residents of Mission, an area within Fingo Village, marched to the municipal buildings, protesting about the lack of service delivery in the area.
“It’s been a long 16 years since we had voted for the new government, yet we are living in these conditions; our houses are dilapidated, there are no street lights and we still use the old bucket system which does not come for a long period, like now amabhaca [bucket toilet collectors]haven’t done their rounds for the past three weeks!” exclaimed Litha Madinda of the area’s street committee.
On Tuesday morning the residents of Mission, an area within Fingo Village, marched to the municipal buildings, protesting about the lack of service delivery in the area.
“It’s been a long 16 years since we had voted for the new government, yet we are living in these conditions; our houses are dilapidated, there are no street lights and we still use the old bucket system which does not come for a long period, like now amabhaca [bucket toilet collectors]haven’t done their rounds for the past three weeks!” exclaimed Litha Madinda of the area’s street committee.
The secretary of the Street Committee, Nombali Ogqoyi echoed her words: “I was born and I grew up in Mission and ’til now I haven’t seen any change in the area, our children have always been vulnerable to diseases like TB from the conditions we live under.”
The residents have also been complaining about their ward councillor, Mxolisi Ntshiba, saying that he should rather resign.
“We are fed up with our councillor and he should leave the position of councillor, he has always promised about the development of Mission but until this day nothing has materialised,”said Ogqoyi.
After their arrival at the municipal buildings, the residents submitted a memorandum which included requests for: proper RDP houses, flushing toilets, street lights, tar roads, the removal of scrap metal in the area and the immediate closure of the scrapyard nearby.
After receiving the memorandum, Makana Mayor Vumile Lwana and other officials convened a special meeting with the residents. Lwana said that since the land used to belong to St Phillip’s Church in Fingo, Mission was on private land which the municipality had no authority over, so government support was restricted.
Indeed, since the 1860s the area had been under the authority of the old St Phillip’s Church in Fingo, however the land was later transferred to the municipality.
The municipal Town Planner, Errol van der Merwe, explained that the process of dealing with the residents’ concerns will take time and that his department cannot look into installing toilets before an environmental impact assessment has been conducted.
Lwana said he cannot interfere with the authority of the ward councillor as the matter would also require the intervention of the ANC leadership, despite ward councillors supposedly being elected by the residents.
He concluded by advising that the residents hold regular meetings with Ntshiba and the other municipal officials involved and if this fails, they have the right to report the matter to his office. You can read more about Mission in Tuesday’s edition of Grocott’s Mail.
