MANGAUNG - The collapse of Mangaung metro continues to affect the provision of basic services for residents and ratepayers.
The only metro in the Free State has been under administration for some time, suffering from leadership, management, administration and financial woes.
Residents complain about the absence and slow pace of the provision of basic services.
Water leaks, potholes, uncollected refuse and unpaid service providers are some of the municipality’s main challenges.
Despite an intervention by national government to save the metro – one sees few signs of success.
From afar, Mangaung still looks like a beautiful and functional city but delve into the city centre and you see the decay.
Mangaung Metro is a shadow of its former self.
The City of Roses - once the pride of the Free State - remains a city in crisis.
Mpho Mojanaga, a Mangaung community leader said, "the systems are not in place at this moment, service delivery has collapsed to an extent that the work of the core function of the institution to a certain extent is being outsourced to the private sector or private institutions."
"And the minute private companies take the work of the Government, it means we do not have a government.”
But, the municipality says crisis, what crisis?
Metro spokesperson Qondile Khedama said, "the basic services are being dealt with. I am sure if there were no basic services at all then the entire City would be dark but the mere fact that when you have to go to work there is water, the mere fact that you can still drive and in some areas are being serviced well when it comes to roads and so."
"We are filling up the potholes. If you look at the main major roads of the City, potholes are being dealt with…the issue is that it’s total collapse, it's a fallacy. Maybe that’s what the detractors want, yes we do have challenges but the basic services are being attended to daily.”
Khedama concedes the Metro has a refuse collection backlog.
He said, "there was a delay in the delivery of diesel."
"Well, those were issues of administration and they have been dealt with since. We are concentrating now on making sure that we are going back to the schedule of waste collection and this is a matter that the Executive Mayor is concerned about because the more the delay the more people are raising concerns.”
Another concern is the high number of unfilled senior management posts in the city.
DA Mangaung caucus leader Johan Pretorius said, "it’s now two years, we don’t have HODs in departments, only acting HODs, there is nothing."
"Strangely enough, last week there was no diesel for officials to do their work. I mean the budget was approved a few weeks ago, how can there be no money for diesel?" "Contractors are not paid, we are sitting with situations where areas are without water because the pumps are broken and we hear the contractors and suppliers are not paid, they can’t get parts for maintenance."
"I mean, it’s ridiculous, there is really no service delivery. I don't know what those officials are doing in that building.”
Apart from service delivery challenges - leadership instability and squabbles continue to plague the already struggling City council.
The ANC - dealing with its own internal factional battles - says it has toppled the DA speaker.
But, the DA says the Council meeting that replaced the Speaker wasn’t convened properly.
Pretorius said, "we are in the process of getting a legal opinion on the matter and then we will be able to say if we are going to court or not but I will send a letter again today to the Executive Mayor and the acting City Manager and we will most definitely tell them that by Friday this week, they need to give us an answer on our allegations that Councillor Manthai is not a Speaker.”
While instability continues to plague Mangaung metro, those most affected by the City’s decay are the ratepayers, residents and businesses.