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Police visibility needs to be increased following Alexandra shooting incidents

The Democratic Alliance (DA) in Gauteng demands that there must be an increase in police visibility in Alexandra following a series of shootings over the last two days.

This is the latest incident involving firearm violence in the province. On Sunday 14 people were killed during a shooting incident at a tavern in Soweto.

In the latest shooting, well-known Alex FM DJ, Joshua Mbatha was killed as well as four other people. In addition, seven people were also injured.

It’s believed that the victims were killed in separate robberies while getting out of taxis.

It is unacceptable that our residents have to live in constant fear of falling prey to criminals.

We demand that Premier David Makhura must urgently liaise with the MEC for Community Safety, Faith Mazibuko and the Gauteng Provincial SAPS Commissioner, Lieutenant General, Elias Mawela, to beef up police visibility in the area.

Furthermore, we also call on the community to assist the police in finding these criminals so that they can face the full might of the law. In addition, we urge them to report any person in possession of a suspected illegal firearm.

The DA extends our condolences to the families who have lost loved ones over the last two days in Alexandra during these shooting incidents.

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Tavern carnage: It is time to adopt the DA’s Gauteng Community Safety Oversight Bill

Gauteng continues to become a lawless society, and many innocent lives have been lost due to a lack of political leadership to ensure that the law enforcement agencies execute their mandate of preventing crime and ensuring residents’ safety.

This past weekend two people were killed, and four others were wounded in a tavern shooting in Katlehong, Ekurhuleni on Friday night. In the early hours of Sunday morning, fifteen people were shot dead in yet another tavern shooting in Soweto, leaving several others injured in hospital.

Soweto and Katlehong are among the high crime spots areas in the province, yet the Gauteng provincial government is not doing enough to ensure that police stations in those areas are well-equipped with much-needed resources to fight crime. The leadership of the current Gauteng government has admitted that we are living in a lawless society, but they do not have a plan to turn the situation around.

It is now time to adopt the DA’s Gauteng Community Safety Oversight Bill to improve the police intelligence to fight and prevent crime. The Bill would give effect to the province’s constitutional mandate and regulate the Gauteng Provincial Government’s powers and functions regarding its oversight function over the police services.

The taverns shootings have created unnecessary anxiety about the ability of the SAPS to ensure business safety through visible policing, with people now being scared to visit taverns and these businesses being at risk of losing their clientele base. Taverns like many small businesses that operate in townships play a critical role in the economy and creating local employment which makes their safety even more critical for the economic stability of these communities.

The DA demands that the Gauteng MEC for Community Safety, Faith Mazibuko and the Gauteng SAPS Provincial Commissioner, Lieutenant General Elias Mawela must immediately engage with the tavern’s associations and the Gauteng Liquor Board to ascertain the root of these violent incidents. They must also implement a crime prevention strategy to ensure the safety of taverns across the province.

The DA is embarking on its own oversight inspection of the 144 police stations in Gauteng to assess the challenges that the police stations are faced with on a daily basis as well as provide solutions to ensure that the police can execute their work without any hindrance.

Our residents deserve a police service that is adequately resourced to keep them safe in their homes and everywhere they go, and the DA will continue to advocate for the safety of Gauteng residents.

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Municipalities spend money on consultants, not service delivery

The report released today by the office of the Auditor-General paints a very bleak picture of the state of our municipalities in Gauteng.

According to the report our municipalities are spending money meant for service delivery on consultants. This has a negative impact on how services are delivered and indicates that cadre deployment does not work.

In addition, this shows that the MEC for Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Lebogang Maile, is failing in executing the mandate of his department which is to provide adequate support to municipalities so that basic service delivery can take place unhindered.

Furthermore, proper checks and balances must be put in place to ensure that cadre deployment comes to an end and that officials who are hired to do the job are capable of executing their duties in a proper and timely manner.

The report further indicates that the Emfuleni Local Municipality incurred penalties for not making payments on time for the May 2021 VAT returns, while the Merafong Local Municipality did not make payment to Eskom within 30 days of the payment becoming due. This resulted in penalties being incurred. In addition, the Merafong Local Municipality lost money it had invested with VBS.

The Democratic Alliance (DA) in Gauteng is demanding that MEC Maile starts taking his job seriously and ensures that proper project management takes place in his department, especially concerning housing projects which are either not completed in budget or not completed at all.

The DA will continue to fight for the delivery of basic services to our residents in the province as it is unacceptable to have a situation where rates and taxes are paid on time, but our residents do not receive the basic services for which they are paying.

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DA congratulates Midvaal Local Municipality on obtaining a high score on Municipal Financial Sustainability Index

The Democratic Alliance (DA) in Gauteng would like to congratulate the Midvaal Local Municipality for obtaining a score of 75 on the Municipal Financial Sustainability Index (MFSI) for 2021.
The MFSI is a scoring model that measures six financial components of a municipality as follows over five years:
· Operating performance
· Liquidity management
· Debt governance
· Budget practices
· Affordability
· Infrastructure development
According to this report, the Midvaal Local Municipality is the only municipality in the province that has scored this high.
The report indicates that Midvaal is adhering to proper budgetary practices and strict financial control, as well as good revenue collection despite the tough economic conditions that the country is currently experiencing.
This is critical to ensuring that a municipality is well run and that our residents receive the service delivery that they pay for with their hard-earned money.

This clearly shows that this DA-led municipality is deeply committed to ensuring that our residents receive only the best basic services that are delivered on time and within budget.

We urge municipalities like the Emfuleni Local Municipality to learn from their counterpart about best practices when it comes to running a municipality. This will ensure that they can improve on the current situation in which they find themselves.

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#GautengWaterCrisis: Hundreds of angry Gauteng residents sign DA’s petition demanding an uninterrupted supply of water

The Democratic Alliance (DA) in Gauteng has received hundreds of signatures from angry residents in the province who have been negatively impacted by the abrupt water cuts in the various parts of the province.

Residents have experienced interruptions in their supply of water when Rand Water embarks on maintenance of their bulk infrastructure.

The municipalities are unable to plan properly when the maintenance does occur because they do not receive timeous communications from Rand Water.

Residents then take their frustrations out on their ward councillors and the municipality as they expect to receive a continuous supply of water from the municipality.

Furthermore, municipalities do not have sufficient water tankers and budget to provide water tankers to the areas affected by Rand Water’s infrastructure maintenance.

Proper communication from Rand Water’s maintenance plans, ideally before the start of the new financial year, will ensure that all municipalities in the province are able to properly plan and budget for extra water tankers to be procured when the need arises.

The DA will continue with its efforts to engage with the National Minister of Water and Sanitation, Senzo Mchunu, Premier David Makhura and Rand Water on this matter. So far, our letters requesting a meeting and intervention from Provincial Government have been met with silence. This shows that they clearly have little regard for our basic human rights as enshrined in the Constitution.

We urge all our residents affected by Rand Water’s incompetence to sign our petition here to ensure that there is an uninterrupted supply of water in the province.

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#GautengWaterCrisis: Minister Mchunu, Premier Makhura and Rand Water snub their noses at DA’s request for meetings and discussions on the Gauteng water crisis

The Democratic Alliance (DA) in Gauteng has received no response from the Office of the Premier, Rand Water and the Minister of Water and Sanitation regarding our letters in which we requested that they urgently share their plans regarding the current water crisis in the province.

In our letter to the CEO of Rand Water, we requested an urgent meeting to discuss the way forward once the entity embarks on its planned maintenance of our water infrastructure. This request has been met with silence.

We also wrote to Premier David Makhura, regarding the fact that our municipalities do not have sufficient water tankers to ensure that all residents affected by the water outages during maintenance are supplied with water. On two previous occasions when Rand Water embarked on maintenance, the municipalities like Tshwane were not given sufficient notice so that they could procure additional water tankers. In this letter, we asked the Premier to liaise with the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) to provide municipalities with water tankers. Again, this letter was met with silence.

In addition, we also wrote a letter to the Minister of Water and Sanitation, Senzo Mchunu regarding the refusal by his department to issue Rand Water with an additional licence to increase the water capacity in the province. Again, no response was received.

This is very worrying as the provision of water is a basic human right enshrined in our Constitution. As the DA, we have a responsibility to ensure that all our residents are given access to basic services and that their basic human rights are not infringed upon. In all our communication with the various stakeholders, we have offered solutions that would help to mitigate the problems that may arise from prolonged water outages due to the maintenance of our bulk water infrastructure.

In the next few days, we will be meeting with all our Mayors to discuss the plans that will be put in place to ensure the continuous supply of water to our residents.

Furthermore, the DA has received thousands of signatures on our petition to the Premier and COGTA MEC to lobby their national counterparts to engage with the South African Defence Force to assist with water tankers during the water outages. We also demand a proper audit of all our water infrastructure in Gauteng.

We urge all Gauteng residents to sign our petition to help end the water crisis in Gauteng. To sign or access the DA’s Water Crisis Petition, please click this link: https://petitions.da.org.za/p/gauteng-water-crisis

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#Diepslootviolence: SAPS’ lack of action leads to community taking law into their own hands

The Democratic Alliance (DA) in Gauteng is calling on the Gauteng MEC for Community Safety, Faith Mazibuko to liaise with her national counterparts, the Minister of Police, and the Minister of State Security to urgently brief the Gauteng Provincial Legislature’s (GPL) portfolio Committee on Community Safety on the action that will be taken to quell the violence in Diepsloot.

We are greatly concerned that this violence will quickly escalate, and we will see similar scenes as we did in July last year.

The DA believes that there is a fine line between criminality and voicing your concern about undocumented foreign nationals.

While the country’s law must be respected and adhered to by all, we cannot have a situation where our residents take the law into their own hands and injure or kill innocent bystanders.

We condemn the mob justice that has taken place in Diepsloot over the last few days, but we urge our residents to come forward with any information about where they believe criminal activities are taking place.

This will allow the full might of the law to take its course. It is unacceptable that we now have a community like Diepsloot living in fear because of a few individuals who decided to take the law into their own hands.

The DA will be tabling questions in the GPL around the recent activities in Diepsloot as it is very concerning that this community took matters into their own hands shortly after the Minister of Police met with the community to discuss their concerns and deployed a heavy police contingent in Diepsloot.

 

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#GautengWaterCrisis: DA is not looking for votes Minister Mchunu, we want to ensure that the basic right of access to water is not compromised by incompetency

The incompetent and inefficient Rand Water has on several occasions failed to communicate timeously to the residents of Gauteng through their municipalities about the planned water outages due to the maintenance of water infrastructure.

Based on two previous occasions where our residents were abrupt left without water earlier this year, it raised concern for the DA. This is because the situation was not effectively communicated by Rand Water and therefore, we had no choice but to put pressure on the government to ensure that such instances were not repeated.

The Minister of Water and Sanitation, Senzo Mchunu is now trying to deflect the seriousness of the situation by saying that the DA has caused panic among Gauteng residents. However, the fact that they have delayed the planned scheduled maintenance from 1-3 April 2022 shows that there was no effective communication with the municipalities that were going to be affected.

Rand Water states that they are not responsible for providing water tankers to the affected municipalities during water outages yet, they are the ones who cause water supply interruptions due to their maintenance operations.

While we agree that there is a need to maintain water infrastructure, this however cannot be done by inconveniencing our residents. Rand Water must also be held financially accountable for the financial burden that is now placed on municipalities in terms of sourcing out water tankers.

Municipalities do not have sufficient water tankers to provide water to the affected residents during water outages caused by Rand Water. There should be a shared responsibility between the Rand Water and municipalities to ensure that areas affected by water outages are provided with water during that period. This will leave thousands of Gauteng residents without water and will then blame the municipalities for failing to provide water tankers.

The DA is not desperate for votes and will never politicise such a human crisis. We will continue to put pressure on both provincial and national governments as well as Rand Water to ensure an uninterrupted water supply for all Gauteng residents.

The DA is petitioning the Premier and COGTA MEC to lobby their national counterparts to engage with the South African National Defence Force to assist with water tankers during the water outages. We also demand a proper audit of all our water infrastructure in Gauteng.

We will be engaging with the Department of Water and Sanitation concerning its refusal to grant a license to Rand Water to increase its water capacity supply. We will also be engaging with Rand Water in terms of their water infrastructure maintenance plans and their ineffective communication to the municipalities.

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#GautengWaterCrisis: Gauteng residents will continue to suffer without water as DA’s water motion has been denied

Today, the ANC in the Gauteng Provincial Legislature has denied the Democratic Alliance’s (DA) urgent motion to debate the water crisis in Gauteng before the next planned major Rand Water outage on 1 April 2022.

The ANC is running away from a debate that will expose the incompetence and failures of both their provincial and national governments to provide uninterrupted water supply to the residents of Gauteng.

The residents of Gauteng will continue to suffer for days on end without water because Rand Water, which is a national entity, unexpectedly cuts water supply to our municipalities. At the same time, no alternative sources are made available to ensure that our people have access to water during that period. The same happens when they are conducting water infrastructure maintenance.

The DA’s motion was aimed at debating solutions that must be put in place before the planned Rand Water outages scheduled from 1-3 April 2022 and beyond due to major maintenance of water infrastructure.

The failure to have a debate and discuss the solutions will result in many areas across Gauteng not having water. The areas that will be most affected are parts of Tshwane, Johannesburg, Ekurhuleni, and Mogale City.

This province is heading for a disaster should there be no urgent interventions from the provincial government to ensure that they assist municipalities in providing water to the affected areas. The municipalities are already doing their part in providing water during outages; however, they do not have sufficient water tankers and are unable to deal with this crisis by themselves.

Gauteng faces a medium to long term water crisis because the water supply is not keeping up with the growth in its economy and population. The equation is that demand is rising daily but the supply of water is remaining the same. We must also note that Gauteng also supplies water to other municipalities outside the province such as Thembisile Hani (Mpumalanga) and Madibeng (North West).

In a short time, this province will have a limited water supply just like we have limited electricity supply if Rand Water’s supply capacity is not increased.

We are faced with a critical situation as the national Department of Water and Sanitation is refusing to approve Rand Water’s licence application to increase its water supply capacity in the province.

All these factors will lead to water scarcity in Gauteng and reiterate the importance of debating this matter to find solutions to this looming crisis. If we do not find solutions soon, it will lead to dire economic and humanitarian consequences.

The DA will continue to fight for an increased water supply in Gauteng to avert such a disaster. The DA is petitioning the Premier and COGTA MEC to lobby their national counterparts to declare all water infrastructure national key points to be exempted from load shedding and to engage with the South African National Defence Force to assist with water tankers during the water outages. We also demand a proper audit of all our water infrastructure in Gauteng. To sign or access the DA’s Water Crisis Petition, please click this link: https://petitions.da.org.za/p/gauteng-water-crisis

The DA will hand over a memorandum to the Premier, COGTA MEC and the CEO of Rand Water about the lack of water tankers during water outages, a severe lack of proper and regular maintenance of water infrastructure, and the need for a Water Indaba to discuss issues of investment into water infrastructure and funding as well as vandalism of water infrastructure

The DA will also be engaging with the Department of Water and Sanitation with regard to its refusal to grant a license to Rand Water to increase its water capacity supply. In the past several years, Gauteng has experienced massive growth in terms of the population due to immigration, and there is a dire need to increase Rand Water’s water supply capacity. We will also be engaging with Rand Water in terms of their water infrastructure maintenance plans and their ineffective communication to the municipalities. We will engage with all our municipalities across Gauteng to discuss the water crisis and how they can intervene in terms of awareness campaigns on how to save water as a scarce resource.

The ANC’s refusal to debate the water crisis exposes how they are willing to play political games instead of assisting our residents, who will be severely impacted by the scheduled planned water outages and future water problems. This is exactly what landed us in trouble with Eskom and the country’s electricity supply. If this is the ANC’s attitude, then Gauteng residents must brace themselves for water shedding.

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#GautengWaterCrisis: DA Gauteng launches water campaign to ensure access to uninterrupted water supply for all residents

Gauteng residents are faced with a severe water crisis due to Rand Water’s incompetence and failure to provide water tankers to the affected residents during the water outages caused by the maintenance of water infrastructure.

Rand Water has scheduled water outages from 1-3 April 2022 due to major maintenance of water infrastructure. This will result in many areas across Gauteng not having water. The areas that will be most affected are parts of Tshwane, Johannesburg, Ekurhuleni, and Mogale City.

The residents will be placed in a dire situation as municipalities do not have sufficient water tankers to provide water to the affected areas. The DA has been reliably informed that the Provincial Disaster Management does not have water tankers to assist municipalities to provide water for the affected residents. This will leave thousands of Gauteng residents without water as Rand Water has on several occasions failed to provide water tankers or an alternative to the affected residents.

Based on previous experiences, some parts of Tshwane, Ekurhuleni and Mogale City have been without water for nearly a week due to the failure by Eskom to provide electricity to Rand Water. This resulted in Rand Water unable to supply water to numerous reservoirs. Electricity was restored; however, it took some days for Rand Water to fill up the water in the reservoirs to a sufficient level to reinstate supply.

It means that our people will suffer without water as Rand Water does not effectively communicate to the municipalities exactly how many days residents will be without water. Rand Water does not include the days that they will be waiting for the reservoirs to fill up in their communication. Our people will be left in the dark and the municipalities will be blamed.

The DA has written to the Gauteng Premier, MEC for COGTA, HOD of COGTA, Provincial Disaster Management and the CEO of Rand Water to urgently assist affected municipalities with water tankers to distribute water to the affected areas during water outages. We also requested that the Premier’s office should assist in ensuring that Rand Water is held financially accountable for failing to provide water during the planned water outages.

We have not yet received responses from all of the above. The DA also posed questions directly to the Minister of Water and Sanitation, Senzo Mchunu last week during a ministerial briefing, where he gave no real commitment as to how they will address the water crisis in Gauteng, but merely shifted the blame to load shedding which is as a result of the failures of Eskom which is a national entity.

The DA will be embarking on the following initiatives to put pressure on both provincial and national government to ensure access to uninterrupted water supply for all Gauteng residents:

• Motion: the DA will table an urgent motion in the Gauteng Provincial Legislature to debate the water crisis in Gauteng on Friday 25 March 2022 before the next planned major Rand Water outage on 1 April 2022.
• Petition: the DA will be petitioning the Premier and COGTA MEC to lobby their national counterparts to declare all water infrastructure national key points to be exempted from load shedding and to engage with the South African National Defence Force to assist with water tankers during the water outages. We also demand a proper audit of all our water infrastructure in Gauteng
• Memorandum: the DA will hand over a memorandum to the Premier, COGTA MEC and the CEO of Rand Water about the lack of water tankers during water outages, a severe lack of proper and regular maintenance of water infrastructure, and the need for a Water Indaba to discuss issues of investment into water infrastructure and funding as well as vandalism of water infrastructure
• Engagements: the DA will also be engaging with the Department of Water and Sanitation with regards to its refusal to grant a license to Rand Water to increase its water capacity supply. Gauteng has in the past years experienced huge growth in terms of the population due to immigration and there is a dire need to increase Rand Water’s water supply capacity. We will also be engaging with Rand Water in terms of their water infrastructure maintenance plans and their ineffective communication to the municipalities. We will engage with all our municipalities across Gauteng to discuss the water crisis and how they can intervene in terms of awareness campaigns on how to save water as a scarce resource.
• We will also be conducting oversight inspections of different water infrastructure points across the province to ascertain the challenges.

Based on last month’s experience, this crisis will manifest its self, starting from next week if there are no urgent interventions. The provincial disaster management centre does not have water tankers which means our residents will be severely impacted by the scheduled planned water outages.

Access to water is a basic human right and a Constitutional right. Water is life and people cannot do without it hence it is critical for all three spheres of government to ensure access to uninterrupted water for all residents.