Fulfilling various roles in Kouga’s Ward 14 for many years has allowed newly appointed ward councillor, Mzwandile Yali, to gain insight into the challenges faced by people in the informal settlements of Ocean View and Tokyo Sexwale, and now he plans to help the community attain RDP houses and electricity.
Yali has been involved with the implementation of youth development programmes throughout the Kouga region and, in 2017, he was elected as the Kouga Ward 14 youth forum chairperson and later elected as the Kouga regional youth forum chairperson.
Furthermore, during the years 2016 to 2021, he was a member of the Ward 14 committee but later resigned when he was employed by the municipality as an assistant to the previous Ward 14 councillor, Sindiswa Makasi.
In addition to his involvement with the municipality, he was also involved with the Masikhathalelaneni, a local NGO which dealt with disaster management in the community.
“Throughout my work as the ward assistant, I developed a habit of making sure that each day I make someone or a household happy through my assistance.
“I began viewing myself as an agent of service delivery in my community and realised that I was a greater link between my community and the local municipality,” said Yali.
He was appointed as Ward 14 councillor in November last year and he is working hard to deal with the various issues in his areas which include housing backlogs with many people staying in informal settlements in the Ocean View, NoR10 and Tokyo Sexwale locations.
Apart from the lack of housing, Yali said the ward also faced challenges with illegal electricity connections and unavailability of land for churches to erect their structures.
To combat these issues, he said at least 200 sites at the informal settlement of Ebumnyameni in Ocean View received electricity in February.
Yali said they are also in the process of providing clean water and electricity to areas such as Ebumnyameni and the NoR10 location in Tokyo Sexwale.
“My hope for the ward is to speed up the process of the construction of RDP houses, paving of gravel roads and enough toilets in Gushindoda, NoR10 location, Ocean View, Chris Hani location and London. I also want every household to have electricity,” said Yali.
He said joining the municipality had afforded him the opportunity to share the challenges the people in his ward are faced with and help find solutions.
“I am now able to debate in council meetings for the improvement of the ward 14 community.
“I can also interact with directors and managers for urgent issues of service delivery in Ocean View and Tokyo Sexwale,” said Yali.
He said the support from the community has been great and he is grateful for the ward committee which was appointed by the community through a democratic process.
To allow the community to communicate with him about service delivery issues he has requested that they contact him on WhatsApp on 071 8199 549 or on his Facebook page, Zwaii Yali.
“The ward committee is committed to providing a service to our people in all corners of Ward 14,” said Yali.
