As part of the National Imbizo week, the newly appointed Minister of Public Service and Administration in South Africa, Mr Richard Baloyi, and his entourage embarked on an imbizo at an event that was held at Tiyani Ha-Magoro village in the Hlanganani area on Monday.
Baloyi said that the main objective of the event was for him to listen to the community’s concerns regarding service delivery in the area. “The reason why I am here today is to listen to the challenges which community members are faced with in your respective areas,” he said.
He acknowledged that all the challenges of poor service delivery which the people of Tiyani are encountering will be addressed. Community members told the minister that they were aware that the government had allocated several millions of Rands to address challenges of water, damaged roads and houses, but the people who are supposed to implement these particular projects on the ground were failing them.
One of the community members, Mr Tjovitjo Khumalo, indicated that he was not aware that the minister was coming to the area, but he was stunned and shocked when the grader was fixing the road that morning. “This road has not been graded for the past ten years, but I was surprised to see the grader suddenly grading the road. This is a clear indication that the people who are given money to fix these damaged roads are stealing it,” said the angry Khumalo, adding that the councillors in the area were delivering.
He added that in some areas they had been waiting for electricity for the past ten years and nothing was happening. “We have been complaining about electricity in the area, but the government keeps on promising. We sometimes do not eat because there is no water to cook and children often go to school without having washed themselves. The government always promises that the problem will be solved. Nothing is happening and now we are tired of empty promises,” Khumalo highlighted.
The other issue which members of the Tiyani community were not happy about was the fact that members of the community home-based care were taking care of the people who cannot do things by themselves in the community, but they are not getting anything in return. “Disabled people are still given temporary grants, whereas they have permanent disability. People with disabilities are promised things during election times but the government does not implement or keep these promises after the elec-tions and people are worried,” they said.
Responding to the community’s concerns, Baloyi promised the community members during the imbizo that all their challenges would be addressed.