Understanding that we are living in a Democratic country. Democracy affords individual freedom but it also requires its citizens to shoulder social responsibility. Every individual claiming civil liberties owes a debt of obligations and solidarity to his/her democratic society. In 2011 and in 2012 the community of Middelburg EC,in fact the community of Ward 8 & 9 come together and organised themselves in trying to look into the matters that were directly affecting them and the local government became the prime of those discussions. Communities raised their issues,concerns and grieviences. Many of what was said were just matters of a common concerns. 1.High rate of unemployment. 2.Temporary employees intake was not done fairly. 3.The attitude of some Councillors when visited to their offices was bad. 4.The political affiliation was considered when you are even to be taken in as a temporary employee for 3 months. Those are some but few of the grieviences our communities raised with the Councillors. Great masses of our town everyday pray that the new Middelburg EC that is being born will be a good,a moral, a humane and a caring town which as it matures will progressively guarantee the happiness of all its citizens. When dealing with a situation back then in Middelburg EC we needed to check if constitutionally are we not being victimised. The Founding Provisions,on Chapter 1, Section 3.(2) (a) which reads as : All citizens are equally entitled to the rights,privileges and benefits of citizenship. After looking into that section of the constitution we then conclude by saying, we cannot keep quiet and play victims into something that we can collectively correct. We took the streets of Ward 8 & 9 and we occupied every public space in trying to preach about the wrong that is happening at our town. On our interaction with the Municipality of Inxuba Yethemba,we noticed that,there is no agenda in forwarding the local development,we then became super cautious and very fine on what exactly is happening at our municipality. Now, we had to be very accurate and fact finding the state of our municipality. In so doing we also exercise our constitutional right that is being enshrined in Chapter 2, section 16 (1) (b) which reads : Everyone has the right to freedom of expression which include freedom to receive or impart information or ideas. We operated firmly on those rights throughout our discussions.Section 152(1)(e) of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa,read with section 72 to 78 of the Structures Act, give a direct mandate to municipalities to encourange the involvement of communities and community organisations in matters of local government and to establish community participatory systems. Section 8 (g and h), 9 (f) and 72 of the Municipal Structures Act, authorise municipalities to establish ward participatory systems as mechanisms to enhance participatory democracy in local local government. That led to the establisment of ward committes. Ward committees are an advisory body and they must be impartial and perfom its functions without fear,favour or prejudice. Election criteria says to be eligible for election : A person may not be an employee of the Municipality. Ward committes became the subject of our discussions because we felt that,some of our concerns should have been addressed provided that they do not have a symbiosis with Councillors whatsoever. We requested the Speaker to dissolve them and start to look whether really the stakeholders that they claim they are coming from is reall in existance,what weve noticed was that,many were coming from one political party and claim to be coming from different stakeholders of which there is no existance of such ...! Thats what made us to request the Speaker to dissolve the ward committees,and they were even receiving their stipend without even submitting their weekly and monthly reports of which that is still happening. Were we wrong to call for dissolvement of ward committees ? They were not complying with any of their duties/roles and up to date the situation is as it was before. Another argument we have was that of Intergrated Development Plan,our concern was that, the IDP of Inxuba Yethemba is irrevelent and is not narrow when it comes into Middelburg Unit,the question we have here was,among other things that influence the formation of a 5 year IDP ward based plans are the core in such a formulation. Now,in this case theres no Ward Based Plan,now the question was : What influence the formation of an IDP ? IDP is the most important method to plan for future development in the area. IDP further influence the budget and source funding from outside funders. When this very important tool is not guided correctly, how then do we expect to be developed as an Institution and a Unit ? That was the question we impossed,only to be given a mere administrative answer, thats in the Municipal manager to answer and the MM is not around . How dare ? We then continued with our discussions on a day to day bases. As a delegate/representative of the community in those discussion we were reporting back everything weekly and daily to our communities. The issue of : water and Electricity came up and now the discussions were bit rough,politicised and at some point personal. At the last stage of our discussions,the items we debated were : 1. Electrical Vendor in Lusaka 2.Mobile Clinic for Lusaka old people 3.Re-instatement of Subsidies for Indegents after they were removed because of having satelite dish (DSTV) 4.Escalating accounts of water and services. 5.Fixing of Potholes and Plumbing of 1985 more especially for Indegents. 6.Shortage of municipal staff and advertisement of general labour posts. After heavy discussions with Councillors of Middelburg Unit and some in Cradock,we came to an understanding that a petition must be submitted to the Executive Mayor. We then reported back to the Community and they supported a peaceful march where a petition will be handed over to the Executive Mayor,but they were not happy with some of the outcomes in those discussions. On 05/03/2012 a peaceful march under the survaillance of the police took place and a petition was handed over to the Executive Mayor Mrs Goniwe,who then promise in front of the communities that she will be back on 26/03/2012 to respond to the demands of the petition,which comprised of all the above grieviences and concerns including the demand to have : 1. Unit Head 2.Local Economic Development officer 3.Public Participation officer 4.Supply chain officer And lastly we demanded the ward councillors of ward 8 & 9 to resign with immediate effect # very naughty and silly demand. The Executive Mayor did not lived up to her promise of visiting the community of Middelburg EC so as to respond # surely she thought we are not matured enough to engage with her. Little did she knows what was coming into her way. She send us a faxed letter as a response through the office of the Speaker on friday 23/03/2012,and we received it at about 18H00 pm from police captain Mr Meiring,who then told us that the Mayor is not coming on the 26/03/2012. We read through the letter and we noticed that the letter is not answering neither respond to the demands made on the petition,now it was with us the delegates to convey this painful message that the Executive Mayor is not coming and her response is neither what we expected or thought it would be . On the 26/03/2012 we conveyed the message and read the response of the Mayor but communities demanded to see the Mayor,they wanted the Mayor,no one but the Mayor. We then went Captain Meiring and he tried to call the Mayor but he did not reached her and later on we heard that she is not even in Cradock. What happened after that will remain untold but few hours after what happened the Executive Mayor was with us unable to engage with us because some of us were in police station arrested.We then guess that, the Mayor understand the street language,violent one. We understand that we were within our rights to exercise and employ any strategy we deem neccessary to fight that war. Our municipality treated ordinary citizens as trash,ours was to put end to that. It was not about personal glory and we do not go aroud priding ourselves about the achievements we gained. All our efforts were a collective, none should dare claim victory on such ... We knows about the personal blackmailing that was spread amongst us,we know the dividing strategies that were used to demoralised us,we know about the continuation of smear campaign that was and still is going on because of inferior and political immaturity,we should reflect even on delegates of those discussions that we should not turn truimphalist bacause today the sun shines and should never make mistake to think that those we put under pressure and threaten their other source of income,be it in Council or in ward committees,for we will always be judged. We can befriendind them,we can become their puppets,but I for one,refused to be treated as a robot,as puppet and a divider. We must reject politics of petronage that seek to place us in positions to buy our loyalty and silence. Those among us who have been influence and who have been effected with some kind of a parasitic bourgeosie hegemony must not do so in trying to divide us, we must pride ourselves with leadind a protest that ease the pain and brought a smile to many in Middelburg EC,we must further not exhaust ourselves with conflicted people,for they are driven with power hungry attitude and and very stubborn in nature. We must save our energy in engaging with those whove got personal missions to complete,it cant be today you are sharing the same sentiments that you seem to differ with 2 years ago,that shows how conflicted some people are ! Im calling the Intellectuals,the perfumed and unperfumed,educated and dedicated. Im calling the Middelburg Community Revival Project and the interested people to get together and pave a way forward for our town. Middelburg EC is losing direction and heading straight to the sea,it is now becoming the laughing stock of the region/district. Im calling all of you to come back and defend your home town,Middelburg EC is in the Intensive Care Unit ( ICU ) and it has been charged with defibriators every now and then. Come under theme LETS SAVE OUR HOME TOWN all for Middelburg EC and nothing against it,Middelburg EC will fall prey to political scavengers who are confusing our people daily. Lest I forget,the Municipality did respond with actions in some of our demands even though the quality of delivery is poor and resources are limited but they tried # hard luck.Until Chapter 7 of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa is adhered to,fully, we are not going to rest. Struggle Continues .... Amandla !!! Onendlebe zokumamela nonamehlo okufunda makafunde. LETS ENGAGE !!!
Posted on: Sat, 29 Nov 2014 10:27:33 +0000