The leadership collective of the RLM, has changed tact to focus on providing financial and resource support to the Technical and Infrastructure Directorate (DTIS) which is the nerve of service delivery of within the City’s administration. The Directorate has been prioritised to ensure that necessary support is given to the units (water, sanitation and electricity) to address the existing backlog of service delivery complaints, which were due to both financial and resource limitations. The Sanitation team will be focusing on sanitation related problems in Lethabong, for the remainder of this month as well as carrying out maintenance on the sanitation infrastructure.
The RLM’s Community Development Directorate, has upped its ante in respect of clearing of all illegal dumping areas in the various residential areas. This month focus will be directed to numerous areas including – Zinniaville, Geelhout Park, Yizo-Yizo, Boitekong ext 13 and ext 23, Seraleng, Freedom Park, Bokamoso, Karlienpark, Marikana and Tlhabane. Further to that the Directorate will be keeping with one of the City’s strategic priority of ensuring that the environment is kept clean and safe for all, by cleaning public areas and sports facilities such as Tlhabane Stadium, Olympia Park, Zinniaville Sports Ground, and Boitekong Stadium among other areas which will receive attention.
The Municipality is aware of the sensitivities around graveyards as well as the significance such places carry for the residents of Rustenburg, who are from varied religious backgrounds.
To that effect, the RLM will also be attending to the cleaning of cemeteries such as Tlhabane, Pioneer, Donkerhoek and Reitvlei.
The City Council has approved a sizeable amount of an additional allocation to deal with the road network rehabilitation and maintenance. Rustenburg continues to experience high traffic volumes for both commercial and non-commercial usage. As such, the City’s road network requires constant maintenance to meet the demand of freight in particular which plays a crucial role in the economic growth of the City, through the movement of goods and creating access to a myriad of strategic services.
The Roads and Transport Directorate will be taking its pot-hole patching and maintenance by focusing in Rustenburg CBD, Tlhabane, Rustenburg East, Zinniaville, Phatsima, Mafenya, Chaneng, Robega, Water Fall East for this month. The road rehabilitation/maintenance project will focus on the following:
- Clearing of pavements and sidewalks
- Mowing and maintenance of plants on pavement surface and in storm water features
- Unblocking of Storm Water Structures
- Clearing of ditches and culverts
- Repair of traffic signs and road markings
- Shoulder grading
- Pothole patching and crack sealing
- Repair of sealants and expansion joints of Concrete Pavement
- Repair of cut and fill slopes.
Speaking on the side-lines of the weekly Special Mayoral Committee meetings this morning, Executive Mayor Mpho Khunou said, it was important that the concerns of residents are at all material times taken into account “we have recently passed conservative adjustment budget which by all intents and purposes seeks to address core service delivery challenges. We are aware of the water situation, the condition of our City’s roads and we will be doubling our efforts to ensure that residents see an improvement. It will take time for the City to permanently address these and our residents should be seeing a change soon as out plans start to take shape. We however we remain optimistic that the additional allocation to address water challenges will bear fruits in the middle of the next financial year, as this is an on-going concern to us which required attention and intervention” Mayor Khunou said.
Mayor Khunou said, residents need to appreciate that the RLM understands their frustrations well, and it is for that reason that the Municipality has been interacting with stakeholders in finding a lasting solution. To date the RLM has informed the North West Premier, MEC for local government in addition to initiating the discussions with the ministry for water and sanitation about the difficult position the City finds itself in. There are on-going engagements to find a collective solution, to the current water challenge.
Work is currently underway to address increasing the Rustenburg’s water network capacity to deal with intermittent water cuts, low pressured water to high-lying residents as well as to ensure that reservoirs will have the minimum spare capacity to enable flow and reduce scheduled water interruptions largely to high water demand which currently far exceeds the supply. The Executive Mayor has recently announced that an envisaged upgrade of the Bospoort Water Treatment Works from 12 to 24 mega litres which will ensure that residents in Greater Boitekong, Zinniaville, Tlhabane and Tlhabane West among other areas experience an improved access to water with reduced water interruptions.
Regular updates will be communicated in the coming months, to detail the work to be done in other areas, in line with the service delivery plan and also report back on the on completed service delivery backlogs.
End.