Staff Reporter
Mangaung Community Concern (MCC), the group that organised the Mangaung shutdown this week, says it is happy with the plan that they have put together with other stakeholders for the turnaround of metropolitan municipality and hopes the communities will embrace it.
MCC member Temba Zweni however warned in an interview with The Free Stater on Thursday that communities have the final say on whether the agreement and memorandum of understanding signed by the organisation together with the provincial Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA) and the municipality comprehensively covers their concerns.
“The shutdown has been suspended to allow for consultation with community members,” Zweni said by telephone.
“We are having our first meeting on Tuesday next week where we will be getting reports on what has been proposed.
“We will then report back to communities telling them what the municipality has done and what it can do going forward.
“It will depend on what we are told by the people to either go back to the shutdown or not.”
Zweni said his organisation did not expect all their demands to be resolved at once, but they expect meaningful commitment from the municipality and the provincial government in addressing their issues.
“Things won’t be resolved overnight. Some of the issues will require investigations which may take time, but what we want to see is progress whenever we review the matters,” he said.
“We have started working. People have gone back to work and life is slowly getting back to normal.
“We believe communities will be happy with what has been agreed on so far. It’s a start.”
Zweni said anybody claiming that the shutdown is still going on is not part of the MCC because the organisation is presently consulting with communities to ensure the proposed plan is fully implemented.
The MCC wants the city, among other things, to urgently improve service delivery, improve access to business opportunities for residents, implement sound management in municipal affairs, improve access to land and deal with corrupt and aloof government officials.
In response, the provincial government set up a special task team to monitor the implementation of an agreement drawn up to address service delivery and other issues raised by the MCC.
The task team will be led by COGTA and includes representatives from MCC, Mangaung Metro and the local business community.
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