OFM News’ Lee Simmons spoke to the DA’s Free State Provincial head, Roy Jankielsohn, and Johan Steenkamp, DA municipal councillor about the need to have service delivery and its impact on farmers.

Jankielsohn says the DA handed over a memorandum to the Tokologo Local Municipality following a march on Tuesday morning in Dealesville with local residents, DA councillors, and farmers to highlight the lack of services in this municipality and the Free State.

The community of Dealesville united in their adversity to show their dissatisfaction with the poor services, adds Jankielsohn. A memorandum was handed over to a representative of the municipality regarding issues relating to the lack of water for 15 days, sewage and refuse pollution in the community, infrastructure decay, electricity interruptions, poor financial and other administration issues, and the lack of a decent billing system for residents. Residents in Tokologo have reached their saturation point with the poorly ANC-run municipality and the daily decay of basic services, and have decided to march with the DA to highlight issues in this regard, says Jankielsohn.

“The farmers are suffering just like the people in town, and although the farmers have access to their own water, they make use of other infrastructure such as roads in the area. The roads infrastructure is a serious problem for farmers and another aspect that affects the farming community is the ability to access electricity. The sporadic load-shedding that we see has a huge impact on our agricultural community as well,” says Jankielsohn.

Steenkamp adds that the farmers are the biggest income accumulators of the town and that they have already contributed a significant amount of finances to the town amid the damage the recent rain has caused.
 
“If we don’t have the farmers' support from outside, this community can’t grow,” says Steenkamp.

Steenkamp mentions that they seek financial assistance from the Provincial Legislature, however, no response has been given to them.

Steenkamp concludes by saying that the community cannot rely anymore on farmers as they are also financially burdened. He says provincial assistance is imperative for the recovery of the town.

OFM News