Following, the many unannounced visits to various areas of Rustenburg, earlier today the Executive Mayor of Rustenburg – Councillor Mpho Khunou accompanied by the City’s head of administration Mr. Victor Makona made an unannounced visit to see the effectiveness of service delivery as well as to see first-hand the challenges that communities are faced with, where delivery is inconsistent. This visit comes as part of an-going program led by the Mayor of Rustenburg to carry out-oversight exercise where communities have had challenges with the inefficiency of services.
The inspections began with a meeting where ward Councillors of Tlhabane and Tlhabane West were present, including the Council’s Single Whip – Councillor Levy Mokwele and Member of the Mayoral Committee (MMC) for Technical Infrastructure Services – Councillor Michael Mhlungu. The purpose of the meeting, was to provide an update to the ward councillors, on the work which has been done in the area in resolving the bulk services particularly water and sanitation related challenges. Later the inspections were carried out in Zinniaville.
In the recent past, the Mayor has been to various areas within the City Centre, Tlhabane, Boitekong and Tlhabane West to establish what challenges could be as a result of the inefficiencies prohibiting residents to access maximised services at all times. Mayor Khunou said it was important that the Municipality in its approach to addressing service delivery issues needed to be proactive “there is no wisdom, whatsoever for us to come to our residents when there are service delivery protests when we can just come and conduct our oversight at any time” Mayor Khunou said emphatically.
Mayor Khunou has been leading service delivery inspections along many areas of Rustenburg with officials in tow, to ensure that there is accountability and remedial action where RLM officials are found wanting at the expense of residents. He said the days of complacency and lack of consequence management are long gone “we will not have to wait for residents to complain about inconsistent service delivery so that we can act, furthermore we will be on an on-going basis receiving reports from directorates responsible critical for services and where there are continuous concerns with the situation not changing, we will have to act and take those responsible to task. We cannot compromise service delivery while our people continue to be inconvenienced” reiterated Mayor Khunou.
In the recently tabled adjusted budget of the City, the RLM prioritized the bulk infrastructure services of the City, which have not been sufficiently dealt with due to both infrastructural and financial limitations. The allocations in terms of the various areas of urgent intervention in service delivery have been approved as follows, to fast-track service delivery while addressing existing backlogs.
- Roads and Storm Water Maintenance – R12.6 million
- Electrical Unit – R10 million
- Water and Sanitation – R5 million
Mr. Victor Makona the City’s Accounting Officer said, it was important that the recently allocated budget for services is used to fast-track services without any compromise “we will be doing routine checks to see if public funds are used to the benefit of the community, it is our responsibility to ensure that work is done and that the community feels the impact in material terms, if we are to achieve our mandate of improving the speed with which services are rendered” he said.
End.
