Residents aligned with the Mangaung pressure group, calling themselves Mangaung Service Delivery Forum (MSDF), are expected to engage in a protest. The forum’s chairperson, Potso Motoko, previously told OFM News that the protest seeks to highlight the plight of residents in the Metro. He feels the residents have been neglected by the embattled Mangaung Metro Municipality. Motoko said the forum has on countless occasions engaged with political leaders and the powers-that-be about ailing service delivery across towns in the troubled metro but no viable solutions have been attained to date.

He further told OFM News that the forum has gone out of its way to seek the attention of President Cyril Ramphosa, whilst overlooking Premier Sisi Ntombela, and MEC for Cooperative Governance (Cogta), Mxolisi Dukwana, citing failure to address these issues. Potso added that they are hell-bent on making sure that they deal with the pertinent issue which affects the poor and residents who have been left to live in squalor.

Motoko has, however, denied that the MSDF is an attention-seeking group of people. He said: “We are not attention seekers but we want justice for our people, we want our economy back, we want service delivery, we want jobs for all. [We made agreements with them during those intervention meetings but when it was time to implement the decisions - that’s when they failed us. They are not doing that, when they need to hold people accountable, they don’t do that, also when they have to open cases against people, they don’t do that]”.

The group last year held a series of protests, which included the protest at the Department of Health's Bophelo House, against the Premier of the Free State, Sisi Ntombela, and the Department of Small Business Development, Tourism and Environmental Affairs (Destea).

OFM News