By Thabo Monyela
TZANEEN: The incumbent Greater Tzaneen Municipality mayor and ANC Tzaneen sub-region chairperson, Cllr Maripe Mangena confirmed his availability for the second stint of mayorship in the second biggest Municipality in Limpopo.
Mangena was speaking at a press briefing held at Hotel Tzaneen on Tuesday morning.
“If the upper leadership says I should retain my mayorship, I am ready to serve the community with dedication, said Mangena.
After losing a contest of the regional deputy chairperson to Gerson Molapisane during the 8th Karibu conference in July, his ambition of retaining his mayorship position is skating on thin ice.
Reflecting on what he labels as the “five (5) years of service delivery”, Mangena said his administration undertook 16 road projects to various clusters, which 12 are completed and 4 are in progress and awaiting handover, three (3) sports facility, upgrades of several cemeteries, two taxi ranks in Lenyenye and Nkowa-Nkowa and built 1 358 RDP houses with the support of private sectors.
“We acknowledge that there is a lot of work needed to be done, but we couldn’t finish it due to circumstances, however as the municipality we are satisfied with the work done, ” Mangena added.
Mayor Mangena further added that the municipality pride itself with the construction of the first-class library at Runnymade village in partnership with the Department of Arts& Culture and a similar class of library will be built in Moleketlla village, Bolobedu South.
“These libraries situated the far-flung villages will give access to community members and help in combating illiteracy” briefed the media.
One of the thorny issues in the municipality is youth unemployment and skills development, the mayor said that they have employed over 1000 people through EPWPs, however, he conceded that they are not adequate.
Working together with Limpopo Economic Development (LED), GTM has completed phase I of Nkowa-nkowa industrial revitalization, and phase II is underway.
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