The commencement of a major cleaning campaign in Welkom this past weekend signifies a unique partnership between Team Matjhabeng, the business community and residents.
“This partnership with the community is a prerequisite for developmental municipalities,” says Thanduxolo Khalipha, executive mayor of the Matjhabeng Local Municipality.
On Saturday TLBs, front-end loaders, trucks and tractors were used by staff members and the bosses themselves of businesses like Galison, Johan Construction and Plant Hire, Fresh Bake, Pies 4 Sale and Sparta to tidy up the parks, streets, islands and alleys of Welkom as part of a major cleaning campaign.
Khalipha has launched this partnership with the community to focus on the payment of services, the Cleaning Matjhabeng: Beke le beke campaign and also to encourage the reporting of theft and vandalism of municipal property. He wants to build a better municipality and improve service delivery.
“A culture of own responsibility must be instilled. As it is our responsibility to provide services; residents have the responsibility to pay for those services,” says Khalipha.
He says the message is simple. The capacity of a municipality to deliver services is dependent on its ability to bill and collect revenue.
“This is the problem that has confronted many municipalities, including ours, for years. Poverty continues to be the single biggest challenge disabling our households to pay for services rendered. Essentially, recovering arrears from poor households proves to be a difficult hurdle to overcome”, he says.
