Tshwane townships protest over service delivery

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Pretoria - Residents in Mabopane, Winterveldt and Ga-Rankuwa might be left stranded today due to a planned service delivery protest. Organiser David Rakgadi said traffic would be negatively affected due to closure of the main roads in the three townships. “The shutdown is expected to affect shopping malls and other businesses.” He said residents would use the protest to vent out their frustrations over poor service delivery by the City of Tshwane. Rakgadi said the protest followed several attempts to get the City to attend to their issues, but in vain. “We have marched to Tshwane House and the Speaker’s office. We have also been to the Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs and the Premier’s office and all of them didn’t help us.”

Rakgadi said they had gone to the extent of lobbying for the intervention of President Cyril Ramaphosa.

“We wanted the president to intervene in April, but we were surprised to see him in the media addressing issues of Tembisa. His office just wrote to us to say the department would handle our grievances.”

Residents were unhappy because of sewage spillage overflowing in the streets, he said.

“We are calling for a total shutdown until the president, premier (David Makhura) and the mayor (Solly Msimanga) come down to speak to us. If we can’t go on a stay away it will be just like waiting for manna from heaven.”

Rakgadi said residents were angry that old townships had gravel roads while the RDP settlements roads were tarred.

He said residents also had issues with the municipality’s billing system. “There are no meter readers who come to our households, but we receive bills. We want to know what informs those bills.”

Refuse removal bills were unacceptably high and mostly affected pensioners, who were forced to pay a monthly bill of R389, according to Rakgadi.

Metro police spokesperson Senior Superintendent Isaac Mahamba said he had been told about the shutdown, but didn’t have details.

Pretoria News