Despite Witbank’s woes, ANC confident of victory

The ANC says it is not losing any sleep about holding its position in eMalahleni despite serious issues plaguing the town.

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Witbank - The ANC says it is not losing any sleep about holding its position in Witbank ahead of Wednesday's local government elections, despite serious issues plaguing the town.

Lindiwe Ntshalintshali is the party's mayoral candidate and the current mayor of eMalahleni, finishing off Salome Sithole's term, who resigned in July 2015.

“We are very confident that we have done our spade work and we know we are going to win on the 3rd of August.”

The mining town has been grappling with high unemployment, dirty water, rolling blackouts and dilapidated infrastructure.

The financially strained municipality has had to find funds to maintain infrastructure while trying to cope with millions owed to Eskom. Ntshalintshali admitted the town has a pile of issues, “but we are on the right track”.

For over a decade, residents of eMalahleni have had to deal with contaminated water. However, over the past year Ntshalintshali said the water has reached a “drinkable stage.”

She told Independent Media that the issue of dirty water can be attributed to illegal water connections in the town.

“Companies were connecting themselves illegally. As the water was going through the pipes it was being contaminated. Chemicals were also being used which caused major problems.”

Ntshalintshali said that over R300 million had been allocated over the past five years to upgrade the water network. She said the town's water infrastructure was old.

“Residents need to remember that this town turned 100 in 2006, which is when the water problem was at its worst. No pipes were changed ever since and we are seeing the consequences thereof. Our pipes are worn out and rusted, which is also one of the reasons the water was so dirty.”

Another serious issue is the municipalities failure to keep up with payments to Eskom, resulting in blackouts.

Ntshalintshali admitted that Eskom had threatened “countless times” to cut off electricity supply if no payment was made. “It has not been a smooth one. When our municipality manager came into power [a year ago] we we owed about R102 million to Eskom.

“Imagine if you have defaulted once, twice then you almost owe R300 million. It is not that we're not paying at all. Once you skip two months or you pay half, that was the game that the previous municipality manager was playing when [the town] was still under administration.”

Ntshalintshali has assured concerned residents that power outages will soon be a thing of the past. “If your electricity is cut, it is not because the municipality is not paying. It may be because you have not paid. We are really trying to better our community.”

One of the biggest problems pointed out by Ntshalintshali was the demand for electricity. “Our infrastructure is not coping with the demand. Hence the electricity is always tripping. Especially at peak times.”

The municipality has set out programmes which are intended to upgrade the substations in order to keep up with the ongoing developments and demand. “Our working relationship with private sector has made a big difference in helping the municipality.”

The mining town's roads are also in a poor condition, a complaint made by many residents for over a decade. Efforts are now underway to fix potholes after the implementation of a renewal programme by the local government.

The mayor recently called on the Department of Public Roads and Transport to give support.

“The programme has yielded positive results. The team from public works is on site. They have started patching. We are targeting our main streets, the CBD and areas where the schools are.

In a bid to bring down costs the municipality has taken a decision to do away with tar roads. “We rather do paving. it is much much better, cheaper and will create jobs. We are a mining town, our roads suffer due to heavy trucks on the road and blasting.”

On Wednesday the residents of eMalahleni will to the polls and show by vote whether these efforts are enough to keep the ANC's hold intact. Ntshalintshali seemed confident:

“We are 80% ANC and we are proud of the work we have done and plan on doing. We are going to take back this municipality by making sure as the ANC we change the lives of the people because local government is everybody's business.”

heidi.giokos@inl.co.za

Election Bureau