The Operation Patala campaign will see its Executive Mayor, Lucky Phooko, visit residents at the homes to discusses their water and electricity bills and find amicable solutions on how residents could settle their bills. This municipality in amongst the Free State municipalities listed in the latest Auditor-General (AG) report as those in need of urgent intervention. This as Free State municipalities continue to regress on their audit outcomes with none of them having managed to obtain a clean audit in the past fiscal year. In an interview with OFM News, Phooko confirms the non-payment of services by government entities, businesses and households hampers the municipality’s ability to carry out its mandate and provide adequate services to communities. 

Phooko says in order for the municipality to deliver much-needed services such as road maintenance, refuse collection, illegal dumping sites, water provision, and others, they need their financial position to improve. He says the campaign will not only be limited to residents but to local businesses as well.  

“I am embarking on this door-to-door campaign so that I can explain to residents the importance of paying for services and settling their bills. As the municipality, we have drawn a recovery plan to turn around the financial situation of the municipality, but this plan can only materialise if the municipality gets money to do what is supposed to be done”.

He adds that the municipality is in the process of purchasing a new fleet of vehicles to enhance service delivery and that this will be accelerated as soon as all revenue collection measures yield results. 

OFM News