THE Eastern Cape MEC for Transport, Weziwe Tikana, has blamed the lack of maintenance of municipal roads in the Enoch Mgijima area on the feuding council.
Tikana was responding to a question posed by Komani resident, Lusanda Mahashe, during the Taking Legislature to the People programme that took place in Komani this week.
“Some time last year, your department handed over to the local municipality an orange fleet to construct and maintain roads within the Enoch Mgijima, but we last saw them that day. No work has been done on the road that leads to the Queendustria area and Ezibeleni; can you please explain what happened to the assets that were meant for service delivery?” asked Mahashe.
In response, Tikana said, “Because of uncertainty and in fighting within the Enoch Mgijima Local Municipality, there have been delays in the signing of service level agreement.
“The council is fighting and people have their own interests and that is delaying everything,” Tikana said.
She said now that the municipality had appointed a municipal manager, they were expecting the institution to run smoothly. The treasurer in the office had been withholding the municipality’s equitable share since the local authority was marred with uncertainty and was subsequently placed under administration.
The equitable share is a financial allocation in the form of an unconditional grant that enables municipalities to provide basic services to poor households, and to enable municipalities with limited own resources to afford basic administrative and governance capacity and perform core municipal functions.
The former mayor of the municipality, Nokuzola Tolshe, had said during her Integrated Development Plan (IDP) roadshow, that a sum of R8 million had been set aside to pave the road that leads to Ezibeleni Township and the Queendustria areas. But that never materialised.
Meanwhile, the road remains riddled with potholes. Because of lack of maintenance by the municipality, residents have since taken matters into their own hands and are repairing the potholes from their pockets.
Protests have been staged and petitions have been submitted to both local and provincial government demanding that the road be fixed but to no avail.
