Parys branch holds “funeral” for service delivery
The AfriForum branch in Parys today held a proverbial funeral for service delivery as this town and many others under the Ngwathe Local Municipality are suffering from poor service delivery. This comes after many attempts on the part of the branch to make appointments with the mayor and acting municipal manager to discuss poor service delivery. The branch also wanted to offer their help to the municipality during such an appointment to ease their burden.
A pitch black coffin, symbolising the decline in the town, was taken to the municipal building. Alta Pretorius, AfriForum’s District Coordinator for the Mooi River, explained that service delivery is being buried today as there is no longer clean, running water, electricity or decent roads in this town. The Vaal River is also full of sewage, the sewage works leave much to be desired and even the canals that should be used for irrigation are full of sewage.
This branch also demanded that Mokete Phele, the acting Director of Technical Services, submit his letter of resignation. Phele said in February last year that he would resign if the residents of this municipality did not have water within six months. A letter of resignation was posted on his door in advance.
After the demonstration, members of the Parys branch showed that they will not just sit idly by and wait for the municipality to fulfill their duties, they will take the initiative themselves. Stop signs were erected at dangerous intersections and curbs were painted on the main street to tidy it up.
“It’s a shame that we had to do this demonstration today to get a response from the municipality. The Ngwathe municipality’s only concern is to get a salary every month, furthermore they seemingly feel nothing about their residents. We hope that the right people will step in, but in the meantime we will roll up our sleeves ourselves,” says Pretorius.
“We have extended a helping hand to the municipality countless times now. However, we will continue to undertake projects to fix the town,” says Schalk Burger, chairperson of AfriForum’s Parys branch.
According to Jaco Grobbelaar, AfriForum’s Regional Head for the Central Region, the municipality has dealt the death blow to service delivery in this town and they must be held to account. “The mayor, Victoria de Beer, the acting manager, Tebogo Manele and Phele watched as service delivery continued to deteriorate and they did nothing.”
Contact Schalk Burger at 082 653 4281 to get involved with the Parys branch.
