Angry community members from Vyeboom near Vuwani, which falls under the jurisdiction of the Makhado Municipality, marched to the Premier´s Office in Polokwane last Thursday to protest against the lack of service delivery. The members demanded that the area be re-allocated to the Thulamela Municipality.

The poor and struggling families who attended the march claim that they each had to collect R20 to pay for two buses to transport them to Polokwane and back. They claim they had presented their grievances to the local municipality and district municipality, but nothing happened. "That’s why we´ve decided to march to the Premier’s office, because of the ignorance of the Makhado Municipality," one protester said. They gave the Limpopo Premier’s office 14 days to reply; otherwise they are going take the matter to the national government with more protesters.

Some of the placards carried messages such as “The car which was escorting the president JZ had an accident on our gravel road and we are tired about Makhado Municipality we want Thulamela Municipality”.

A community leader from the Vyeboom area, Mr Arnold Mulaudzi, said that the Premier’s office had to see how the matter could be resolved before the community took action. “We are tired of the empty promises from the Makhado Municipality. We need our people to get services like other villages. Our elderly and disabled people are forced to travel long distances to collect water, due to the lack of public taps or boreholes," he said.

The spokesperson of the Makhado Municipality, Mr Louis Bobodi, said that the Makhado Municipal Manager had a meeting with the Vyeboom delegates a few months ago to investigate their complaints. “We found that some of the Vyeboom villages have services; however, the new stands have no water and electricity because these are still new. We are, however, trying to supply them with water via water trucks every time," he said.

"We are not happy with the fact that they rush to the Premier’s office when we are busy communicating with them regarding their complaints. It is their right to get service delivery like others and that is why we are trying our best to deliver water by truck tankers,” Bobodi said.

The Chief of Staff in the Premier’s office, Mr Ambrose Matsheta, received the memorandum on behalf of Premier Cassel Mathale. Matsheta promised to give the memorandum to the relevant people to deal with the matter.