Download PDFIn a small area called M17 within Ga-Rankuwa is a developing area called Moshate Gardens, this area is filled with residents who have bought land and built homes for themselves and their families. Moshate is still undergoing formalisation with the municipality to get service delivery which has affected the livelihoods of the residents.
The residents of this area have been living under difficult conditions due to negligence from caretakers and poor service delivery since at least 2021. Some of these caretakers are landowners, who expect residents to pay them a certain amount of money for service delivery, but to this day there are no services delivered to the community. These residents face problems like lack of proper sanitation services, limited supply of electricity from transformers bought with their money, lack of proper infrastructure like roads in the area. According to the residents, the area has a lot of potential to become a very self-sustainable area without the power-hungry landowners, disturbing the process of improving the area.
Austin Kgori (not his real name) who is a resident of Moshate Gardens explained that “the caretakers do not want any changes made to the area without their knowledge or without them getting a portion of the money that will be used to improve this area”. Austin further explained that the community would arrange meetings to contribute funds for alternative solutions to their problems of service delivery, and the greedy caretakers would Sabotage those plans, all because they were not part of the solution.
Another community member highlights the lack of water in the area as another sabotaged by the caretakers in the area, “the community members are fed up of depending on the caretaker’s empty promises and decided to contribute and purchase pipes that will supply water straight from the caretaker’s pipes to the residents of Moshate Gardens,” said the community member. The solution was implemented and successful for a few days but since the caretakers were no longer making money, they decided to destroy the pipes that the communities had contributed for and links to their taps and sanitary systems”, added the community member.
According to Ronnie Ngcobo (name changed) who is a resident in Moshate Gardens, there is no proper infrastructure in their area “the caretakers are not willing to hand over the place to the municipality” due to things like corruption and powerful councillors under their payroll, he further states that “there is no service delivery because the place is not yet formalised. Ronnie believes that the residents of Moshate Garden will only be satisfied once the mayor of Tshwane addresses them and approves their area as a legitimate and formal place of residence.
The community members are losing their patience, maybe one day the caretakers will finally work with the municipality and deliver services they have been promising to the residents of Moshate Gardens.
This article is an opinion piece submitted on 05 August 2024. The views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect those of Karibu! Online or Khanya College. You may republish this article, so long as you credit the authors and Karibu! Online (www.Karibu.org.za), and do not change the text. Please include a link back to the original article.
