As one drives down the long and winding Tsamaya Avenue in Tshwane’s sprawling Mamelodi township, one is confronted by contrasting views of life in a community where service delivery is largely determined by the street one lives on or the “block”.
A team from Business Day visited the township recently. This is what we encountered. As you enter the township and drive past the Denlyn Shopping Centre and drive a few kilometres down the avenue, township life is brisk, with a few other shopping centres dotting the landscape, while the streets look clean and kempt.
However, in Mahube section or Block 6, Ntombikayise Majola, 24, said: “I don’t like what’s happening here, those in power don’t care about us. We live in shacks and use pit latrines to relieve ourselves. I grew up here, there’s no change.”
This is despite large signage from the Gauteng department of roads and transport, not far from where we are standing, announcing major road construction to Tsamaya Avenue.
Another resident, James Setoaba, 67, told Business Day that his six-roomed house was demolished to make way for the road construction. “The authorities did not compensate us. They have taken away my only source of income. I was renting one of the rooms to a spaza shop owner to make an income,” he said.
“I have been living here for the past 31 years. I voted for Mandela and Mbeki and other ANC leaders, but this time around, I doubt I will vote.”
I voted for the ANC for many years and in the last local government election I voted for the EFF, but there’s no change. I’m still unemployed
— Mamelodi East resident Given Makua
In Mamelodi East, at the corner of Nari and Tau streets, the area is flooded with water. Given Makua said it has been like this for nearly three decades.
“We tried to engage with ward councillors to look at the drainage system, but nothing came of it. I voted for the ANC for many years and in the last local government election I voted for the EFF, but there’s no change. I’m still unemployed,” Makua said.
As we drive out of Mamelodi, we make a turn at Eesterust’s Stormvoel Road where a few potholes dot what is rather a quaint, peaceful-looking and quiet neighbourhood. The people we approach to quiz about service delivery issues refuse to speak on the record or have their photographs taken.
In Salvokop, adjacent to the Kgosi Mampuru II Correctional Centre, ward committee member Ramadimetsa Emily Mokuoloane nails her colours to the mast, saying she would vote ANC in the upcoming municipal elections because the area is well serviced.
“Refuse trucks come, we have water, we have electricity. We couldn’t be happier. The only thing is potholes in the inner streets, perhaps the Tshwane metro could come fix them,” she said.
Community activist Sipho Mahlangu, who lives in a temporary shack neighbourhood in the area, said: “We engage with our leaders all the time, we are cool with service delivery. We have toilets, water, temporary shacks.”
Meanwhile, on a drive down Amina Cachalia Street in the Benoni CBD, one is confronted with a fairly functional town with working traffic lights and spotless streets. But Kemston Avenue is littered with potholes. In Boksburg North and Germiston, we noticed that road signs were weathered.
Boksburg, Benoni, and Germiston are part of the Ekurhuleni metro, which spends R120m fixing traffic lights annually due to vehicle accidents and “deliberate third-party vandalism including theft”, according to metro mayor Nkosindiphile Xhakaza.
Ekurhuleni continues to be blighted by poor service delivery, vandalism of traffic lights, cable theft, unemployment, corruption and weak revenue collection, resulting in the city writing off R2.4bn of its debtors’ book as households struggle to pay municipal accounts.
Ekurhuleni is South Africa’s manufacturing heartland, with a population of about 4-million. Senior municipal staff have been accused of numerous wrongdoings at the Madlanga commission of inquiry into corruption in the criminal justice system.
The local government sector also remains dogged by fruitless, wasteful and unauthorised expenditure amounting to billions of rand, fraud and corruption, poor service delivery and a dearth of competent, skilled personnel at decision-making and management levels.
The National Treasury has launched a R54bn performance-based incentive that will provide cash to fix water, electricity and waste management services on condition the country’s eight metros ringfence revenue from those services in professionally run utilities.
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