Protesters ‘met with municipality before’

A delegation of the Mangaung Concerned Community says they had several meetings with the top management of the Mangaung Metro Municipality that lead to nothing and just left them frustrated. This followed after the metro appealed to members of the community to rather discuss their concerns instead of disrupting services and threatening municipal workers.

Members of the Mangaung Concerned Community stormed the headquarters of the municipality last week and brought all services to a halt. The spokesperson for the municipality, Qondile Khedama, says waste collection and the repair of sewerage leaks, especially, are affected.

In response to this, the already cash-strapped metro – that is under administration - then tightened security and hired a private security company to guard the building. Motlatsi Mokgatla from the concerned group, says hiring a private security company from out of town - to guard the Mangaung Metro’s headquarters - is proof of some of the irregular spending at the municipality.

He says they complained about these tendencies of awarding contracts to companies from outside the Mangaung metro. Other concerns on their list are the lack of service delivery, the high unemployment rates in the area, and the awarding of tenders. The lack of services site for residential and commercial purposes was also on the agenda.

Lebogang Lekgetho, also a member of the group, says the municipality also went ahead and hired this company although they indicated that they will return to the table to talk about their concerns. This is despite the fact that previous meetings had no results. He said in the meantime a total of 14 members of the Mangaung Concerned Community were interdicted by the municipality not to set foot in the metro headquarters in Bloemfontein.

“Members of the group (who got interdicted) were identified by an attendance register they filled in when they met with the top management of the metro before. They were all served with interdicts that they received on their phones,” Lekgetho explained.

Khedama said in an interview with OFM News, the price tag of the security measures is not known yet, but any money not directed to service delivery is a loss for the municipality.

OFM News/Kekeletso Mosebetsi