Service Delivery

THE honourable Mayor of Aganang Local Municipality, Cllr Mmanoko Masehela gave the first ever state of the municipality address at special Izimbizo held on Friday 21 March at the municipal hall and on Sunday 22 March at Dr MJ Madiba high school at Mashashane Ga-Madiba. The aim was to reflect and give status with regard to service delivery progress and challenges in the municipality since inception.

The address at the Municipal hall targeted wards 1 to 10, while the one at Ga-Madiba wards 11 to 18. Traditional leaders, councillors, municipal officials and other stakeholders were also in attendance.

In her address Masehela began by giving the background on when and how the municipality came to being. "Aganang was established in the 2000/01 financial year with only two officials out of Moletjie-Matlala and Maraba-Mashashane-Maja Transitional Local Councils (TLCs)", Masehela said. The municipality now has 76 employees, serving 107 villages. The founding officials are Jack Legodi who is still working at the municipality and Phuti Kabe who is now at Polokwane municipality.

She further said, "As we look back over the past ten years, I wish to acknowledge the commitment by men and women who play a role in steering the ship that is the municipality to delivering services to our people. The municipality developed its first Intergrated Development Plan (IDP) in 2002/03.

This 100% rural has since grown in leaps and bounds, with appointment as a registering authority among other things. Vehicle licence registrations and renewals are now done at the municipality. Upon completion of registration as a Driving License Testing Centre, the municipality will soon issue learners and driving licenses. It will also soon have a law enforcement unit.

The municipality was also appointed as a Water Services Provider (WSP). This will allow for prompt response to water related issues within the municipality. Three water tankers to help with water supply to villages with challenges of supply were recently acquired with the help of Capricorn District Municipality (CDM).

At the moment there are only seven villages out of Aganang's 107 which are without electricity. The municipality is currently busy with electrification of Rampuru and Juno villages at a budget of R 7 million. Eskom is also currently busy in two villages at a budget of R 4 million, while CDM is electrifying six villages at a budget of R 18 million. All these are due for completion in the current financial year ending 30 June.

While acknowledging that there are backlogs especially in building crèches, the municipality is tied in this regard as it is only able to build only two crèches per annum. The backlog is currently standing at 58. The municipality has also managed to tar several roads, provide sanitation facilities with the assistance of CDM and help several local community projects under the Local Economic Development (LED) programmes. Development Bank of South Africa (DBSA) also comes on board in this regard.

At the imbizo at the municipal hall Isaac Mojela from Chloe in ward 9 voiced his dissatisfaction with water supply in his area. He also questioned the criteria of distributing food parcels to communities.

Mpho Mathatho from Segwahleng in ward 14 was not too happy that the youth council is almost nonexistent in the municipality. He urged the municipality to really listen to what the youth need and help them become self sustainable entrepreneurs. There were also issues of not employing local labourers in various water and roads projects from Innocentia Mashilo from Mapateng in ward 14, with general dissatisfaction around state of roads, water and electricity supply.

The journey which started with a single step is certainly continuing. The municipality acknowledged that there certainly are challenges and backlogs in service delivery, but committed to work with communities living by the motto "Mmogo re tla kgona".