A NEW councillor was recently sworn into council to serve the Kouga community.
Born and bred in Humansdorp, new PR councillor of the DA, Jaques Alexander, replaces late councillor, Nico Botha, who passed away last year.
The appointment comes after Alexander, who is well known in the community, where he is actively involved in education, church and sport among others, resigned from his job at SARS in October last year.
“For more than seven years, I travelled to and from Nelson Mandela Bay on a daily basis for my job but I always knew that serving my community was and would always be my greatest passion,” Alexander said.
“The day I resigned, my plans were to prepare for the 2021 local elections, but little did I know that God had already planned my year for me. It is indeed true that man plans, but God decides,” he added.
Alexander has been actively involved in helping the community of Kouga since 2010 with issues ranging from housing, service delivery, SARS and SASSA queries and personal and work-related problems.
He also established a soup kitchen last year to help families affected by the COVID-19 lockdown put food on their tables.
“The only difference is that I will now be receiving a salary for the things I’ve already been doing voluntarily, but that will not change the way I serve my people. I will always have an open-door policy and will treat all my people the same,” Alexander emphasised.
His focus will be to ensure that the residents of Kouga’s basic rights are not violated, especially when it comes to the provision of electricity, water and housing.
“We also need to urgently come up with action plans on how to curb crime in our community,” he added.
