In August 2020, the Democratic Alliance (DA) in Mangaung held a meeting with the acting CEO, Mr Malefane Sekoboto, where we raised concerns regarding dysfunctional street lights. Currently there are more than 14 000 streetlights that are not working within the Metro, including Van Stadensrus, Dewetsdorp and Wepener. Some street lights have not been functioning for more than a year.

Residents of Mangaung have also raised the following pressing concerns:

The unreliable power network during rainstorms. During storms, residents experience intermittent power interruptions which leads to damage of household appliances, security concerns and damage to houses.

Residents are also complaining about the non-maintenance of trees on municipal pavements that short out overhanging cables. Sparks are visible during high winds and residents are becoming increasingly concerned for their lives.

The Centlec CEO informed the DA that a bid for service providers has been published for streetlight maintenance and those operations were to resume in September. Centlec was also considering recruiting Scouts to attend to streetlight complaints within the different wards. This initiative was to be introduced at the end of August but to date the DA has received no further communication regarding this matter.

In 2016, the DA objected to the appointment of Dudu Myeni, the former chairperson of the embattled South African Airways, and TN Mokhesi, former accounting officer at the Free State’s department of human settlements (FSHS), to the board of Centlec. Myeni was later declared a delinquent director by the High Court and Mokhesi was arrested on charges related to the Free State asbestos scandal. A new Centlec board was appointed in October but not all applications were made available to council to approve the appointments. The DA can confirm that the decline of service delivery and failure of Centlec as an entity of the Mangaung Metro is due to the ANC that voted for cadre deployment in 2016.

Communication between the DA and the CEO has been forwarded to Adv. Erika Cilliers from the Office of the Public Protector.

The time has come for residents to hold the ANC caucus in Mangaung to account for their decisions in council. The taxpayer comes first and not the cronies of Ace Magashule or the ANC plagued with corruption.

Issued by DA