THE management of the Richmond Municipality in KwaZulu-Natal Midlands believes that there is a syndicate working to sabotage service delivery.
This follows a couple of incidents where infrastructure was damaged.
The latest was the theft of electricity cables at the local water pump facility, which left residents with dry taps for days.
The municipality believed that these were acts of sabotage aimed at stalling service delivery.
In the Msozomeni area, the only municipality’s excavator, which was used to dig stones at a quarry for road construction was set alight at night four months ago and has been inactive since.
Now the municipality has to fork out more than R3 million to buy a new machine.
Provincial police spokesperson Constable Thenjiswa Ngcobo said the case of the alleged arson was still under investigation.
In a statement, Mayor Bonginkosi Ngcongo said he was disturbed by the incidents.
“Over the past few months, we have witnessed the destruction of equipment and infrastructure in our municipality.
“Some of these instances include but not limited to the burning of the excavator, stealing of cables for an electricity project at Silahla as well as vandalising of the DB Main Electricity Switch at the Water Purification Plant in Ward 1,” read the statement, urging residents to help to identify culprits.
Municipal manager Bhekani Mswane told the Sunday Tribune that the incidents were criminal.
“We believe that the aim is to obliterate the infrastructure that the municipality is using to deliver services so that we may be seen as a municipality that is failing.
“The issue of re-gravelling roads is a burning one in Richmond because most of the roads are gravel. So the community is looking at that as the main driver of the service delivery in terms of judging if the municipality is delivering or not and if you burn that piece of equipment you are obliterating the means of the municipality to deliver that service,” said Mswane.
He said the municipality was relying on the police to establish the reason for the vandalism.
“Once the perpetrators have been identified then we will be able to establish why are they doing this,” he said
Mswane said the fact that the excavator was destroyed in the build-up to the general elections was suspicious.
He said one of the villages had just received electricity connections, but cables were stolen.
“This is done so that the community is angry with the municipality. There is an underlying aim behind this,” he said.
A group of MKP members marched from Endaleni township to the town hall on Friday demanding the dissolution of the council so that a by-election could be held.
They believed that the general elections indicated that their party was dominant in the area.
They complained about poor service delivery, nepotism, and the failure of the municipality to hold a by-election to replace a councillor who resigned.
“Electricity keeps going off as load reduction without informing the community. We don’t have water, we last had it before elections,” said MKP local coordinator Sino Nxumalo.
He said the theft of the electricity cables at the local water pump station should not be an excuse “because that happened two or three days ago”.
“We suspect that this (cable theft) was done by people who heard that we will be having this march to create an impression.
“MKP has very disciplined members as you see that there is no disruption and there is no tyre burning,” he said.
He alleged that the current council was no longer serving the purpose of the people.
“It would help us if the council could be dissolved,” said Nxumalo.
Council spokesperson Sibonelo Bhengu did not respond to Nxumalo’s allegations.