ActionSA Gauteng Provincial Chairperson John Moodey and Tshwane Mayoral Candidate Abel Tau hit the campaign trail vigour as they visited Soshanguve to address various service delivery issues affecting the community during the political party’s poster launch tour.
This comes after numerous complaints from community members of wards 11, 25, 27 and 33 about the lack of health services provision, inadequate housing, poor social development, the impact of the billing crisis in the city of Tshwane, and the impact of unlawful immigration.
First stop was Block JJ Clinic where concerns were raised regarding the health facility operating hours, long queues and patients being turned away without getting treatment.
Engaging with the facility manager Abel Tau said “We are getting complaints from the general public regarding the clinics operating hours and we said as a political party, instead of pointing fingers let us engage with you and come-up with the solution to fix the problem.
Another issue raised by Tau was the impact illegal immigrant had on the health facility, the manager concurred that indeed it had a negative impact on their provision for quality service but said that their mandate was to provide healthcare to those in need and he was not in a position to check their immigration status.
Households without title deeds was another issue raised, as it emerged that many residents were not in possession of the deeds to prove ownership whilst they been living in the houses for years.
Modiegi Ledwaba from Block PP1 said “We are all unemployed and have been waiting to get a title deed without success and the city says that the stand the RDP house has been built on is an open space, yet a house has been built and water and electricity are being provided. We have been sent from pillar to post without success and can’t get legal representation to fix our problem.”
“We make use of our legal team to seek a solution to remedy the situation because this is a fixable problem,” said Tau.
Erroneous billing of households by the municipality was noted as a huge problem that needed urgent attention. Residential by-laws infringement came to the fore as resident complained about a house manufacturing steel gates in Block MM was giving them sleepless nights with no help in sight.
Tau said “Law enforcement officials are concerned about people planting vegetables and not dealing with issues that affect the community, if people want to manufacture things they should do so in an industrial area and not a residential area as it is an infringement of their human rights and breaking the law.”