By Mpho Modiba
MARULENG- The residents of Maruleng Local Municipality expressed their concern over the recruitment process in their area during the mayoral Imbizo that was held at Ward 12 Liverpool Sports Ground in Nkopetsi Village on Sunday, March 12.
The mayoral imbizo is an ongoing outreach programme to bring local government closer to citizens. The municipality interacts with communities regarding upcoming service-delivery projects in their areas and provides progress reports on the existing ones.
The Mayor of Maruleng Municipality Cllr Tsheko Musolwa was accompanied by Speaker Blantina Raganya, Chief Whip Dipuo Thobejane, councillors, Representatives from the royal Sekgoka family and several stakeholders.
In his main address, Mayor Musolwa said in their previous meeting with the community they complained about the lack of a dumping area the municipality provided the village with a big bin that they should fill it and the Municipality comes to collect it to the dumping area. He says Maruleng has been praised as the best municipality that spends its MIG budget very well and delivers services to the people. He says they have come up with a methodology to introduce two projects to be implemented simultaneously as previously in Bochabelo the community always engaged in protests and wanted to be begged for the contractor to complete the project so nowadays if a community decides to close the road and block a contractor from working they redirect the budget to work on another project in a ward that is cooperative because fighting waste a lot of time and delays projects.
Regarding recruitment in the municipality, the Mayor was controversial when he said that as a ruling party, they have their way of recruiting staff and spotting the best talent. The community was still not satisfied with that answer. He says the road to Machoshing will work on it. In October Road Agency Limpopo (RAL) will construct a road from Moshate to Callies until Tzaneen.
The project in Matjokotja is still under the hands of the contractor it is not yet handed over to the municipality. He further mentioned that there will be two projects running simultaneously at Shikwane and Balone. R8 Million will be budgeted from 2024 to 2025 budget for road rehabilitation in Lorraine. A contractor has been appointed by RAL on the road from Ofcalaco to The Oaks. The road from Nkopetsi to the clinic via the two schools Motlolatsoku and Makgehleng to Lorraine will be part of the plan for the new year waiting for budget if it is enough it will be implemented.
Councilor Tshehla has been requested to do a follow-up on it. A new police station and TVET College will be constructed. The project bakery and brickyard by the Limpopo Department of Social Development has stopped because of lack of funding, during covid 19 provincial treasury told departments to do cost containment and Mayor Musolwa says he will ask Director Phasha of Community services to look at it.
Hoedspruit will open a new mall in October 2023 and a new hotel mayor, Musolwa has requested the owners to ensure that they only recruit people from Maruleng Municipality.
