Rise Mzansi party in the Free State marched to the offices of the Maluti A Phofung Municipality on Tuesday 6 February to hand a memorandum of demand.
The march started well going around the Qwaqwa CBD to the offices of the municipality but unfortunately, the security closed the gate, and denied Rise Mzansi Free State members access to the building but only allowed the media and Rise Mzansi Free State leadership.
Talking about the reason for their march, Rise Mzansi Free State Convenor Nomsa Marchesi said the march was about services as the MAP Municipality has not been able to provide consistent basic services to its residents with water being one of the ongoing challenges the residents have to deal with.
Marchesi further said it’s unconstitutional for people not to have water for more than seven (7) days despite the fact that Qwaqwa is surrounded by water with the Caledon river starting in Qwaqwa yet residents of the municipality had no water.
“Not only do they not have water but the are electricity issues, some days they have and some days they don’t have electricity, which is a concern to us. Water is life and we felt that it needed us to come here and protest in solidarity with the people of Maluti A Phofung because this has been going on for a very long time, enough is enough, something has to be done” Marchesi said.
In the Rise Mzansi Free State memorandum addressed to the Mayor, the Speaker, and the City Manager, the party said they are gravely concerned about the state of infrastructure, and the lack of service delivery in the municipality.
The party referred MAP to Section 27(1) of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, which guarantees the right of everyone to have access to sufficient water. Section 73 Municipal Systems Act: Municipal Responsibilities include the delivery of a range of basic services such as access to water and sanitation to residents in a sustainable manner
The Water Service Act 108 of 1997: Everyone has the right to access basic water supply and sanitation services. Every water services institution must take steps to realize these rights. Every Municipality must plan in its water services development plan to realize these rights.
“The Maluti- A – Pofung local Municipality is also required to draw up plans for service delivery through Integrated Development Plans (IDP) and the Service Delivery Budget and Implementation Plans (SDBIP). In the instance of the Maluti-A-Pofung Local Municipality, both these documents are a box-ticking exercise leaving communities without hope and explanations for lack of services.” Read the memorandum.
Sadly neither the Mayor, Municipal Manager, City Manager, or anyone from the municipality availed themselves to accept the memorandum but instead, a security guard who identified himself only as Mr Mofokeng and seemed too happy to accept the memorandum like he owned the MAP building accepted it.
This Mr. Mofokeng told the journalists who were present at the handover of the memorandum that he would take it to his superiors and won’t sign anything. He failed to answer the media’s questions when asked in what capacity was he accepting the memorandum.
Rise Mzansi Free State Convenor Nomsa Marchesi addressing the media after handing the memorandum to Mofokeng said the municipality’s failure to meet them proved they undermined them.
A stone’s throw away from the MAP building, Free State World and the media present witnessed people getting water from a fire hydrant, filling their bottles and buckets.
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