Mogorwane residents demand better service delivery

Mogorwane

Residents of Matote Section in Mogorwane Village outside Jane Furse, within Makhuduthamaga Local Municipality (MLM) Ward 10, have vowed to shut-down the village should their service delivery demands not be met by MLM and Sekhukhune District Municipality (SDM).

The residents are disgruntled about lack of electricity and shortage of drinkable water, which they say has been a concern for many years in their village.

They say Matote Section of Ward 10 under MLM, which consist of Mogorwane Village, has been excluded from the electrifying projects which has recently started in Ga-Moloi Village in the same ward.

The disgruntled residents say they have constantly sent a delegation to present their grievances with the local councillor and the district municipality but their requests fell on deaf ears with the local municipality failing to commit to electrify the village.

According to residents, a borehole water project in Mogorwane, which was completed in 2021, has not provided water to the residents. The reasons provided is that the water pump is broken only five days after the project was completed, leaving them with no access to drinking water for 3 years.

The Mogorwane Concerned Residents Forum (MCRF), which interacts with the municipalities on behalf of residents, has on Thursday 15August 2024, put the district municipality in terms that should the municipality fail to provide the village with water in the next 5 days, the people will take to the streets to expedite their demands for urgent access to clean water as guaranteed by the Constitution of the country.

A community leader, Doctor Seroka, said residents are angry because MLM and SDM are failing to acknowledge pleads raised by residents to improve service delivery in the village.

“The community is worried because there are no clear explanations from the municipalities each time we raise our concerns. These municipalities are not taking our community seriously, they even side-lined our MCRF delegation that was sent to them recently to raise poor service delivery concerns,” he said.

Seroka indicated that residents have to buy water from those who own boreholes in their yards and he personally have to fork out R370-00 to refill a 3700L of water storage tank.

The Democratic Union Party (DUP) President, Tonic Manchidi, said the party stand in solidarity with the Mogorwane community in their demands for better living conditions and service delivery.

“Our further investigations as the organization into the water crisis in Mogorwane shows that this is a man made crisis in order for ANC cadres to loot the money through water trucking system. The amount of money being spent by the municipality to buy water is unnecessary. We believe that the municipality should just fix the water pump and people drink water for free from the borehole infrastructure system that exist in the village,” he said.

According to Manchidi, DUP has contacted MMC for Water and Sanitation in the district, requesting him to come and meet with Mogorwane residents in order to address their concerns, however, he refused saying his schedule is very busy and he will not mess up his schedule for people who plan to protest.

“It is disappointing because he further said that if people want to protest, they are free to do so as it is their constitutional right but he does not have time, he is very busy,” Manchidi explained.

He cited that the arrogance of the MMC therefore confirms the allegations that they are benefiting from the water tankers system which only comes once in two months in the village.

Manchidi furthered said he had a meeting with MMC for Infrastructure in MLM to try and address the electricity problem.

“I was requested by the MMC that we should write a letter to him and he promised to respond to the enquiry the following day after receiving the letter.  We still have not received any response from the MMC or his office, instead he avoids our calls and texts,” informed Manchidi.

He said the party encourages the community to protest to the national government to urgently intervene in the matters.

“We will also be reporting the alleged corruption to the office of the public protector,” concluded Manchidi.

At the time of going to press, both MLM and SDM could not comment to the Mogorwane community concerns.