Home News Start delivering or follow Matika, angry Galeshewe residents warn Mabilo and Co

Start delivering or follow Matika, angry Galeshewe residents warn Mabilo and Co

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Sol Plaatje executive mayor Patrick Mabilo met with Galeshewe community members on Sunday

Sol Plaatje executive mayor Patrick Mabilo held a meeting with community members at the Galeshewe circle on Sunday regarding a list of demands that they had given the municipality. Pictures: Danie van der Lith

GALESHEWE community members gave Sol Plaatje executive mayor Patrick Mabilo and members of the mayoral committee (MMC) an ultimatum on Sunday – to either start delivering or to step down.

The team was given 48 hours to provide feedback or the community members would renew their protest action.

Mabilo faced the disgruntled community members, who had handed over a memorandum of demands to him two weeks ago, at the Galeshewe circle on Sunday afternoon.

He arrived under a heavy police presence, with municipal security officials also in attendance, to meet with the hundreds of community members gathered at the circle.

The fed-up community members voiced their displeasure that Sol Plaatje Municipality “has been failing to provide residents with decent services for many years”.

They lambasted the mayor and said that he was running a “wasteful” municipality with a “disrespectful” MMC.

They told Mabilo to disband the MMC or “follow [former mayor Mangaliso] Matika”.

A small group of community members called for a “total shutdown” as from Monday, as they had little faith in the response they would receive from the mayor.

They had called on Mabilo to “start implementing his promises” on Monday.

Community leaders, however, agreed to give the mayor 48 hours in which to provide them with an update.

The leadership further promised the community that updates would be provided through all relevant media channels.

Ward 33 community members demanded that Mabilo and his team come to their ward, at 8am already, to inspect the blocked water canal that they have been complaining about for years.

They pointed out that residents and members of the community, including patients at the nearby Galeshewe Day Hospital, had to endure the smell of raw sewage on a daily basis.

Meanwhile, other communities that had participated in the city-wide protests on Thursday, such as Roodepan and Greenpoint, also held separate meetings on the weekend to give residents feedback on responses received from the mayor.

The communities of Roodepan and Greenpoint said they had decided to suspend their protests, for now, if the municipality started delivering on its promises.

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