The Freedom Front Plus (VF Plus) sent an urgent letter to the Msukaligwa Local Municipality (Ermelo, Breyton, Davel, Lothair) after the Minister of Mineral and Petroleum Resources, Mr Gwede Mantashe, visited Ermelo.
The letter asks municipal management to provide full particulars and an explanation of the costs related to the visit as well as the hasty and incomplete clean-up of the town.
Local residents have had to put up with streets riddled with potholes, blocked sewage systems, and litter in public spaces and sidewalks for several years.
It is unacceptable that the Municipality has for years consistently failed to provide basic service delivery, but made a superficial effort to clean up the town shortly before Mr Mantashe’s visit.
In addition, efforts to clean up and do repairs focused solely on the carefully selected routes along which the Minister were to travel. A mere 200m further on, the actual Ermelo remained unchanged; gaping potholes, sewage running down the streets, leaking water pipes, heaps of rubbish and livestock wandering the streets of the CBD.
The Freedom Front Plus demands urgent intervention in the growing crisis. Municipal management should also explain why residents’ complaints are not met with the same kind of response.
The Freedom Front Plus will keep applying pressure until basic service delivery is the norm in Msukaligwa.
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