All protocols observed, your worship EVENTS

The residents of Tzaneen flocked to the Tzaneen Primary School hall on Wednesday evening this week for their chance to have a face-to-face discussion with their mayor. More specifically they wanted the opportunity to ask direct questions related to loadshedding schedules – who compiles them, how are they scheduled, why do some areas have the worst time slots for weeks without end, are there any alternatives to work around them, and why do we have 12 hours instead of eight.

The meeting was arranged by the Freedom Front Plus PR Councillor, André Moss, who arranged the Mayor to meet with the residents. However, when residents entered the hall in anticipation of some direct answers at 17:00 that afternoon, it was not the mayor they saw upon the stage before them. The entire executive committee of the Greater Tzaneen Municipality were perched atop the ANC branded stage, with the opposition lining the front row before them (one of the opposition councillors arrived late even though the meeting was already 20 minutes behind schedule) and a projection screen slowly covering the entire panel moments before the start of the show.

The show was opened by a local pastor before the programme director took to the microphone and introduced each of the exco members before giving the opposition a turn. The director then stated that only four topics would be discussed that evening namely issues related water, potholes, electricity and waste management.

It was then announced that certain representatives of certain groups within the community would express their concerns over issues which they would like answers to including the incomplete draft IDP and issues related to the budget. None of the above was communicated adequately to the residents ahead of the meeting which led to many of them walking out of the hall and returning home.

The meeting was planned to end by 19:00, but by 20:00 that evening there were less than 80 community members left in the hall, most of them residents from the Flora Park area. In fact, even one of the opposition councillors had left an hour before the conclusion of the meeting.

Suffice to say, the community was not pleased and left feeling disappointed in their leadership as they were never afforded the answers to the only issues they really wanted clarity on. The event had turned into yet another political game play with no real decisions taken on the evening except that the Mayor promised to give the two DA councillors for Ward 14 and 15 instruction to organize separate meetings exclusively dedicated to electrical concerns on dates still to be announced.