Byline: Andani Matumba
26 September 2022
Living up to its slogan “Modern city of excellence”, Govan Mbeki Municipality embarked on a journey of service delivery within the municipality.
The service delivery outreach programme which was launched on Friday, 23 September 2022 by the Executive Mayor, Cllr Nhlakanipho Zuma together with the District Mayor, Cllr Walter Mngomezulu consisted of a series of six (6) projects wherein the municipality visited Secunda, Embalenhle, Leandra and Moedverloren respectively to carry out his service delivery mandate.
A fleet of eight (8) bakkies procured for Govan Mbeki Municipality Departments
The programme was launched by a handover ceremony of a fleet of eight (8) bakkies to various departments within the municipality in order to respond to current challenges and accelerate service delivery within the municipality.
Two (2) of the bakkies are said to be for the disaster management unit meanwhile others will be spread across other service delivery departments.
This follows after GMM had just procured a fleet of three (3) honey sucker trucks, three (3) water tanks, two (2) trackers and eight (8) bakkies in August/July which were intended on curbing poor service delivery.
During the handover, Cllr Nhlakanipho Zuma said that he does not expect any delayed response by municipality staff since they have there is an increase in the fleet to get to different areas within the municipality without an issue of shortage in the fleet.
District Mayor, Cllr Walter Mngomezulu of Gert Sibande District Municipality said he was impressed of commitment the municipality has towards its people.
“The last time I was here, it was during the IDP meeting and already I can attest that most of the things which you promised would be achieved within the coming quarter by the municipality are being implemented,” said Cllr Mngomezulu.
Handover of the Thusong Service Center
The second Phase was in Leandra where the Mayor opened and handed over Tholulwazi Thusong Service Centre which was previously destroyed by the residents during a protest.
“We hope that the residents of this town will take care of their property and not repeat what happened previously,” said Cllr Zuma.
He further urged the residents to care for their infrastructure and avoid destroying public infrastructure as it is meant to assist them.
The centre is home to several departments such as Home Affairs and other Municipality Offices.
During the opening of the service center, the mayor said that he wants it to be named after a freedom fighter from around the area as it has not yet been given a name.
Food supplies and necessities for the Ndou and Mapesoane Family
The Mayor and his entourage also visited two families one was in Moeldverloren (ward 1) – Ndou family and Embalenhle (Ext 26, ward 11) – Mapesoane family where the municipality donated food supplies for the families, a wheelchair for Mr Ndou who lost his mobility last year and a laptop for Hlalifo Mapesoane who was electrocuted by a hanging. (the two stories are already published on our website)
Hlalefo was walking from school when he was electrocuted by a hanging electricity wire.
Handover of substation 3
The programme was closed off by the handover of substation 3 in Embalenhle situated next to Mandela after the upgrade of the electricity technologies used to control the flow of electricity from the substations to the benefiting homes.
The mayor said he has an intention of refurbishing all the substations in Embalenhle to relieve the current currency overload on the available substation which constantly causes the electricity to trip causing load shedding.
