Organisers of the Mangaung shutdown which brought Bloemfontein to a complete standstill in May over service delivery and administrative issues in the city, the Mangaung Concerned Community (MCC), say they are not happy with the way the Free State capital has addressed their demands because there seems to be a deliberate ploy to derail all efforts to bring better service delivery and management to the city. MCC spokesperson Themba Zweni told The Free Stater they want to see a marked improvement in administration and municipal finances in the coming five years. Excerpts:
The MCC had a detailed list of demands when it brought the city of Bloemfontein to a complete halt in May. Are you happy with the way the municipality has addressed your concerns?
No, we are not happy. The challenge with Mangaung is that you take two steps forward, and then you take four steps backwards. You will remember that we were engaged in talks with the Mangaung municipality and everything was going very well. We even had some agreements regarding the issues we raised. We were having four primary demands, namely the lack of land, poor service delivery, lack of employment opportunities and lack of business opportunities. We have agreements on those issues with the municipality on how we will progress. But, unfortunately, the establishment of the metro police threw spanners into the works. We ended up focusing more on the establishment of the metro police instead of the issues at hand. But now that the establishment of the metro police has been stopped, we are resuming the talks we had initially. Of course, we have seen some work being done on the issue of service delivery but we are not happy.
What particular issues from your initial demands are you not happy with?
Service delivery remains our major concern. Lack of employment opportunities remains a problem too. Yes, our local guys are getting sub-contracts and other business opportunities, but we are not yet there where we can say the economy of the city belongs to the residents of the city. We have some instances that contractors are appointed but our local guys are not given opportunities there. We want local businesses to be included, so that the city can grow.
If I can take you back to the issue of metro police, were you taken by surprise at its establishment or you were informed of the plan?
No, we were not. You see, that’s why I was saying you make progress, then suddenly you see someone taking us back. We have even gone to the extent of engaging the ANC deputy president (David Mabuza) about it. There is a particular gentleman who must be removed from the discussions. We have been raising the issue even when we started engaging with the premier of the province (Sisi Ntombela). He may not be officially part of the negotiations right now, but things could change because of his role behind closed doors. The issue of the metro police wasn’t there until August when they started saying ‘we are launching the metro police’. This was a resolution of 2012. It caught us by surprise and we couldn’t understand the sudden rush. Our question was very simple. We told them we had no objection to the establishment of the metro police, but why the rush?
And for you to say that, were you suspecting something, maybe in the form of misuse of funds or procedure not being followed?
We have our own suspicions which we still hold up to now. We prefer to leave it at that point for now. We also suspect that, because people realised the progress we were making, they also wanted to ensure that we were defocused. Some people didn’t want us to move forward.
The Mangaung shutdown had a major impact on the city. No one expected it to be that effective. Now the country is heading to local government elections, yet you still say you are not happy with how things have gone. What should people consider when they go to vote?
I cannot say much at this point. We are planning to release a statement in the next few days, where we are advising community members on what to consider when voting for pollical parties. I wouldn’t want to pre-empt it. We are still of the view that all political parties were complicit to what happened in the city. They could have done much more but, unfortunately, they did not. So, we will be talking to our members and residents in general about what to consider when voting. Things like priorities and other issues.
Is the MCC supporting any candidates in the local government elections?
The MCC is not supporting any candidate. The MCC is not contesting the elections. But the MCC would encourage residents to make wise choices and we would want to hold every person who gets elected accountable.
You feel the political parties in Mangaung council were somehow complicit in that they failed to act order to save the city, so how do you hope to work with these parties after the elections?
Like I said, we will be releasing something in the next few days. We will be outlining some of our conditions to work with any person who wants to become a public representative. We will be making it very clear to everyone that what happened in the last five years will not happen again. We will be watching them quite closely.
Without pre-empting your statement, what would you like to see happening in the city in the next five years?
The first thing will be administrative stability in the municipality. The second one will be proper financial management. We believe once you have those in place, you will be able to get everything going. We are actually encouraging residents to focus more on municipal processes because . . . once the municipal administration and the politicians start working on something, they cannot just change. They should always engage the community.
1 Comment
We want a better future for our children,this thing of money misusing should come to an end cus we r tired of hunger pain