President of Concerned Residents for Service Delivery in Mamelodi Oupa Mtshweni invoked divine intervention as he led a march of residents, traditional leaders and civic organisations to the Union Buildings on Wednesday.
“As we march to the Union Buildings today to deliver our memorandum of demands to President Cyril Ramaphosa, we put our faith and trust in God because no leader is greater than God,” said Mtshweni.
“We have exhausted all consultative avenues with the City of Tshwane and it is now time that we took our grievances to the provincial and national government structures, who will hopefully listen to our concerns,” he said.
“During election time all structures of different political parties come to our homes to seek votes, but when we try to approach them regarding our concerns as residents, they play hide-and-seek,” lamented Mtshweni.
“We demand the scrapping of high bills that have been imposed on us as residents because they are fraudulent, are mere estimations and are based on the apartheid era billing system,” fumed Mtshweni.
“We want all bills to be scrapped so that we can start afresh, and we want old-aged pensioners to be exempted from paying for services because they only earn around R2 000 monthly pension grants,” he said.
“Forcing old-aged pensioners to pay for services is like giving them something with the right hand and then taking it away with the left one,” he said.
“Old-aged pensioners can’t afford basic necessities in their daily lives and the high bills imposed on them by the municipality add to their physical and mental depression,” explained Mtshweni as he in the process lamented the fact that he and his fellow marchers were sabotaged by the municipality at the eleventh hour, this after buses which were scheduled to transport them for free to the Union Buildings failed to come and fetch them as promised by the City of Tshwane municipality.
Member of Community Organisation for Transformation and Implementation (COTI) Joseph Moremedi told Tshwane Talks that the main concern of his organisation was that the municipality uses estimations to bill residents and that they would like the national government to actively intervene and stop this malpractice.
“What the municipality is doing is illegal because City officials sit in their offices and do estimations instead of conducting actual readings, and in our opinion, this is tantamount to cheating the residents of Tshwane,” said Moremedi.
Letuba Khanye of Bronkhorspruit told Tshwane Talks that he and his fellow residents from Bronkhorspruit came to the march to raise their concern about the estimated billing system and that he has been mandated by the elderly residents of Bronkhorspruit to demand the implementation of the government’s Batho Pele policy, which would see the government adhering to the demands of the residents and scrapping the high bills as they are harmful to residents,” he said.
He referred to a situation whereby residents of Zithabiseni spent two months earlier this year without water in the area and that the municipality took long before providing the hapless residents, who include the elderly among them, with water again.
He also said when residents of areas like Zithobeni go on strike regarding service delivery issues, their demands are addressed quickly because they are near the Bronkhorspruit CBD, where there is economic activity, but that when residents of areas like Ekangala protest over service delivery issues, their concerns are ignored as these areas are far from the Bronkhorspruit CBD, and their actions won’t harm economic activities at the Bronkhorspruit CBD.
Atteridgeville resident known only as Mpho pointed out that he and his Atteridgeville residents have been submitting memorandums to various mayors of Tshwane since time immemorial and that up to now they haven’t received any response whatsoever.
“We want the unfair estimations system to be scrapped and the high bills that residents are said to be owing the municipality to also be scrapped, and another thing is that residents of informal settlements use water and electricity for free because there are no billing systems that are in place in their areas, yet we who stay in formalised areas are forced to pay high estimated bills,” he said.
“We love our government but our government doesn’t treat us well because our people are not employed, yet there are eleven or twelve factories in Ekandustria where only foreigners have been employed,” said Chief Mabena of the Amandebele tribe.
“At the end of each month residents get high bills from the municipality but can’t pay the said bills because they are unemployed, and another thing is that an unemployed person and a pensioner are forced to pay more or less the same amount of money that is expected of an employed person,” he said.
Chief Mabena also lamented the fact that there is money that was budgeted by the City of Tshwane to build a stadium in Ekangala but that stadium had not yet been built, seven years after promises were made that it would be built,” he said.
“Now the question is where did that money go to? And why is there no development in Ekangala? Where has the money to develop the area gone to?” asked Mabena.
“Youths who have passed Matric are unemployed and can be seen loitering the streets and smoking Nyaope, and bus company PUTCO makes huge profits from Ekangala bus commuters, yet it doesn’t offer local children bursaries to further their studies, despite the fact that government subsidises PUTCO” lamented the Chief.
Official from the Presidency Philemon Mahlangu accepted the residents’ memorandum and promised that he will make sure that President Ramaphosa responds within three weeks as stipulated in the memorandum.
Copy of memorandum:
