Municipal delegation inspects problem areas in Eltivillas

The Makhado Municipality, with delegations from the Vhembe District Municipality and the Eltivillas Residents Association, held an inspection tour in Eltivillas last week to note all service-delivery challenges in the area.

They concentrated on potholed roads, open sewers, a problematic sewage pumping station and unoccupied stands.

This came after the Eltivillas Residents Association had a prior meeting with the Makhado Municipality’s mayor, Cllr David Mutavhatsindi, where all parties agreed to go into site monitoring. Mutavhatsindi said that it was good for residents to raise concerns on service delivery while using the right channels as was the case with the Eltivillas Residents Association.

“Service delivery is the core mandate of a local municipality and where a community has issues, it is our duty as the municipality to address them,” he said. “We are committed to make Eltivillas a better place to live.”

The residents pointed out the problem of the discontinuation of the water supply in the residential area. They failed to understand the reason why there was a continuous supply of water at the dumping site and the car wash, while the residents continued to suffer from a lack of water supply.
The representative from the Vhembe District Municipality, Cllr Lucy Mulaudzi, said that the matter would be thoroughly looked into and addressed to make sure that all affected residents received water at the end of the day. “We are setting our working target to resolve this problem within 14 days,” she said. “Then we will get back to the residents.”

Residents also wanted the municipality to address the problematic sewage pumping station in Eltivillas. It was heard that, in times of electricity outages, the pumping station returned all sewage to residential homes. “This issue is very serious,” said Mulaudzi. “It needs to be addressed with immediate effect as a temporary measure while we are still planning to either relocate the pumping station or come up with something else. At the moment we are not very sure about the viability of relocating this pumping station or just totally removing it completely, so that sewage will go straight to the main sewerage station.”

Ayob Motors raised concerns about the market stalls which encumber their business from the motorists driving along the N1. It was agreed that the issue would be addressed amiably with proper consultation with all the hawkers concerned or involved, and the voluntary involvement of Ayob Motors.

The truck parking has been causing a lot of dust which affects the local businesses and erodes the site which had been initially demarcated as a public park. Residents, and some senior municipal officials, felt that the place needed to be fenced off with short poles and be developed into a park with trees. “This will sustain the beauty of our town,” said one resident.

It was also noted that thieves were stealing steel and iron lids from manholes along the streets and sidewalks to sell to scrapeyards for cash. It was suggested that all iron lids should be replaced with concrete lids.

More issues, such as a need for street lights to be fixed, a demarcation fence around Eltivillas, unoccupied stands and the putting in place of speed humps in some parts, were also brought up for discussion

Eltivillas Residents Association chairperson Mr Percy Sinthumule said that all issues were long overdue and that residents couldn’t accept a situation where they were “paying rates but service delivery was zero”.

“Now that we have engaged the leadership (municipality), we hope and believe the sun is going to shine on us,” Sinthumule said.

Date:17 June 2015

By: Tshifhiwa Mukwevho

Tshifhiwa Given Mukwevho was born in 1984 in Madombidzha village, not far from Louis Trichardt in the Limpopo Province. After submitting articles for roughly a year for Limpopo Mirror's youth supplement, Makoya, he started writing for the main newspaper. He is a prolific writer who published his first book, titled A Traumatic Revenge in 2011. It focusses on life on the street and how to survive amidst poverty. His second book titled The Violent Gestures of Life was published in 2014.

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