Community members of Tshikota township outside Louis Trichardt raised their concerns during the first of the Makhado Municipality´s mayoral imbizos that was held at the Tshikota community hall on Sunday.

A lot of issues were raised, including damaged streets, the high cost of graves, the lack of fences at the graveyard, the water supply, street lights, sports grounds and the 170 RDP houses in the township that are still not completed.

According to Cllr Michael Makhado of the Makhado Municipality, the main purpose of the imbizo was to listen to the community’s concerns, so that they can be addressed. “We have just started engaging in the imbizo as part of the new mayor’s strategy of dealing with poor service delivery in the area,” he said.

Another concern which the community raised was the fact that community members relieve themselves in the nearby bushes, as they do not have toilets in the newly built RDP houses. The houses were completed in 2007. This is in actual fact a very serious challenge of sanitation and it often increases the spread of cholera in the area.

The mayor of the Makhado Municipality, Cllr Mavhungu Luruli, said that part of the turn-around strategy is to address the challenges of roads in the R293 towns such as Tshikota, Vleifontein, Vuwani and Makhado Biaba. According to Luruli, this project has already started.

Community members were concerned about the incomplete RDP houses in the township. According to a community leader, Pastor Philemon Mashau, they have engaged the Department of Housing in Limpopo through the municipality, as the project was progressing at a very slow rate. “The project started in 2005, but there is no progress. We were told that the engineer which the department had appointed has resigned and that they are busy trying to appoint another engineer for the project,” he said.

However, community members of Tshikota who are waiting for the houses have taken a resolution that, should the RDP houses not be completed by the end of March, they are going to occupy their stands. The project was scheduled to be completed in March this year, but at this stage, there are only about eight houses which are half completed at the site, without roofs.

Mashau lashed out at community leaders who proclaimed that they would not vote during the coming national and provincial elections. Apparently, members of the newly formed Congress of the People party (COPE) are discouraging members of the Tshikota community to vote for the ruling party, the ANC.

The municipality has, in the meantime, started with the erection of toilets in the area and also started with the installation of more street lights.

Another community member, Ranzu Mashaba, stressed that the middleclass was not taken seriously by the municipality as the only thing which the municipality mostly does in Tshikota is to provide RDP houses and then forget about them. “We want an area where we can buy a site and develop our own houses, but the municipality is using all the land available for RDP houses,” she said.

She added that she was born in Tshikota. “I am now working and I want to have my own house, but there is no space here,” she said.