The Makhado Municipality interacted with communities of Ward16 during a public-participation imbizo at the Shalom Christian Church in Waterval last Friday.

The purpose of the imbizo was to listen to people's concerns about issues of service delivery in order to find a way of addressing them adequately, said municipal mayor Cllr David Mutavhatsindi.

During the event, different stakeholders from the community, including representatives of the youth, home-based care groups, the elderly, community policing forum, Sanco, traditional healers and business forums, voiced their concerns and addressed their needs.

The chairperson of the Waterval branch of the Traditional Healers Association, Ms Linah Rambau, requested the “government” to intervene in the spread of foreign, illegal inyangas or sangomas who distribute “dangerous” advertorial pamphlets. “These people claim to terminate pregnancies at affordable prices and people easily fall prey to these false healers,” Rambau said. “Women continue to die in the hands of these false healers, as a result of botched abortions. A real healer will never kill anybody. The problem is these false healers mar our good names as traditional healers.”

Rambau further called upon the municipal to start treating traditional healers with the same respect and eagerness which they give medical doctors and teachers.

Sanco pleaded with the municipality to consider naming the streets in Waterval township. On this aspect, the mayor advised Sanco to consult with all relevant stakeholders in the community and then the process might be finalised with the municipality's assistance.

Youth representative Madume Munyai requested the municipality to at least assist in completing the local stadium, which had previously been vandalised twice each time it was completed. “The stadium walls were made of zinc sheets and thieves took advantage of the situation and stole the zinc sheets,” Munyai said. He further pointed out the need of municipality-supported job creation projects within the location.

Mutavhatsindi promised to address the issue of the sports ground with immediate effect, and further advised the youth to form co-operatives and other youth development projects. “If you can visit a LIBSA office (Limpopo Business Support Agency) at our offices, you might definitely get all the relevant information on how to launch yourselves as the youth,” he said. “As the municipality, we are trying to fix a number of roads after the recent rains,” Cllr Mutavhatsindi said.

Residents also complained about councillors who do not give feedback each time they have attended an integrated development plan (IDP) meeting. “Any interested community member should feel free to attend IDP meeting to see how the budget has been split for different projects within our municipality,” he said. "However, this does not preclude councillors from giving the community feedback about a meeting."