The DA holds the solution to Thaba Chweu’s decline

The DA holds the solution to Thaba Chweu’s decline

By BRIAN KAJENGO

The DA is the only party that can save the Thaba Chweu local municipality from complete collapse, by putting an end to corruption, by professionalising and depoliticising the administration and by proper monitoring and oversight over municipal projects.

The implementation of proper financial controls will drastically reduce irregular and wasteful expenditure, as well as ensure that municipal infrastructure grant funds reach their intended destination, and increasing and improving service delivery across all communities.

Through the implementation of these measures, Thaba Chweu transformed into a top tourism and investment destination, with low levels of unemployment and increased economic growth.

During the DA’s provincial leadership tour through Thaba Chweu yesterday, we paid a visit to Mashishing Extension 9, whose residents relocated here from the Stasie informal settlement in 2012, ostensibly provided with quality housing and proper service delivery in a newly established township.

To this day nothing has been done to improve this community’s quality of life, and people are still living in squalor, with no access to running water, sanitation, electricity or housing. The only change this community has experienced is a change of location.  

Mashishing Extension 9 is a typical reflection of what could have and should have been, but never was.

Much progress made during the early years of our democracy, as people increasingly enjoyed access to basic services and lived in more dignified conditions.

However, progress came to halt when Premier DD Mabuza took office in 2009. Corruption, nepotism and cronyism flourished, and this municipality rapidly declined to be the worst in the province, and quite possibly the country.

Fortunately all is not lost for the community of Extension 9 or the rest of Thaba Chweu. The DA, with its firm commitment to the well-being of the people, has the policies, the political will to implement them, and a proven track record of quality service delivery to bring about change and to restore Thaba Chweu’s status of the jewel of Mpumalanga’s tourism industry.

 The people of this Mashishing and Mpumalanga cannot afford another five years of ANC maladministration and corruption, because life will only get better under a DA-led provincial administration.