The municipal speech by the Mayor of the Govan Mbeki Local Municipality (GMM), Nhlakanipho Zuma, was solely aimed at canvassing votes for the ANC in the upcoming local government elections and made no mention of the pressing financial problems and general decline of the Municipality.
The service delivery of GMM, which serves the towns of Bethal, Charl Cilliers, Embalenhle, Evander, Kinross, Leandra, Secunda and Trichardt, either falls far short or is non-existent.
Zuma, however, decided to focus on the expropriation of land without compensation for housing projects in his speech, but he failed to mention where the funds needed to provide these housing projects with the necessary water and sanitation infrastructure will come from.
The Municipality already has an outstanding utility account amounting to R2 billion due to non-payment by the community and businesses, thus, the Municipality simply does not have the funds to provide basic services to new housing projects.
The threat that he is going to expropriate land in Kinross without compensation to build a school and that he will make history with land grabs is dangerous and will only deter prospective investors in the local economy.
Zuma also referred to GMM's so-called economic growth and he thanked former ANC mayors for their hard work. This is ironic in light of the decline of GMM and the financial predicament in which it finds itself since the ANC took control over the Municipality.
A town like Bethal, for instance, is constantly plagued by power outages and water problems due to the Municipality's non-payment to Eskom and Rand Water. No mention was made of how the outstanding debt of R2,7 billion with the two bulk service providers will be settled.
The ANC has destroyed the once prosperous towns in the Govan Mbeki Municipality. Voters have the opportunity to stand up against this in the upcoming local government elections. Stand with the FF Plus and send a loud and clear message that this will no longer be tolerated. The decline must be brought to an end.
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