Irate residents of Hammanskraal have accused their local chief Kekana of the Amandebele-Ba-Lebelo Traditional Council of blocking development in the area by demanding some percentage share in projects that are meant to bring development to the area.
Now to ventilate their demands and frustrations, the residents marched to the homestead of the chief to deliver a memorandum of grievances on Wednesday.
The marching residents represent people living in areas which fall under the jurisdiction of Chief Kekana.
The said areas include Mashemong, Majaneng, Surumane, Portion 9 and the local RDP housing units.
“We are asking Chief Kekana to stop interfering and let the City of Tshwane bring development to our areas so that our area can have value,” said leader of the marching residents Thulisile Mtshali.
“There is no development in our areas and when it rains we get flooded and nobody comes to our rescue,” she said.
“We are of the opinion that Chief Kekana is the one blocking development in our areas because each time we approach the City of Tshwane regarding issues of development in our areas we are told that Chief Kekana tells the Metro that we are by-passing him; that what we are doing is not in line with protocol and procedure,” she said.
“Now we want to hear straight from the Chief himself as to where we must go when we have grievances; do we approach him or do we go straight to the City of Tshwane?” she asked.
“Each time bad things like floodings occur and are flighted on TV, Hammanskraal is always there; we are tired of being victims of such incidents and we want development with immediate effect,” said Mtshali.
“We also want Chief Kekana to tell us if it is true that he is demanding a certain percentage in projects that bring development to our areas,” fumed Mtshali.
The residents’ memorandum was received by Chief Kekana himself and head woman of the Kekana Royal House Anna Kekana responded as follows to the demands of the residents:
“We don’t have a problem with residents bringing their demands to the Kekana Royal House because they have a right to be concerned and we are willing to stand together with them and resolve the issues that they are complaining about.”
Regarding allegations that Chief Kekana is demanding a certain percentage from projects that are meant to bring development to the Hammanskraal area, Anna Kekana said the following:
“I can’t entertain those allegations, I don’t have comment on that, and it is only after sitting down and having a meeting with the residents that we will know whether those allegations are true or not, we will know whether where there is smoke there is fire,” she said.
“We want service to come to us as we are residents of Tshwane and we are tired of not getting service from city of Tshwane,” Bridget Makena said.
“We are tired of being victims of flood always, we want to be like all other areas here in Tshwane,” Godfrey Malatji said.