Rising anger over slow pace of service delivery

Rising frustration over the slow pace of service delivery recently caused the residents of two municipalities in central South Africa to block one of the country's major highways in protest. "After more than a decade of democracy - with our government in place - people expect delivery," Mbuso Mdake, one of the residents of Ezenzeleni township near the town of Warden in the central Free State province, told IRIN. In the absence of a drainage system, flowing streams of sewage flood the untarred streets, uncollected buckets loaded with human waste line the backyards, and rubbish is piled up between the houses and outside the township's clinic. During a two-week period in September, frustrated residents in the neighbouring towns of Vrede and Memel, which together form the Phumelela municipality, organised themselves into a body called the Concerned Group and roped in children from the local schools to organise a series of demonstrations. "We pay more than US $10 in rates [municipal taxes] every month - we have not received any services in return," said Mdake, a member of the Concerned Group. Two weeks ago the Free State premier, Beatrice Marshoff, was reported as saying that the government intended to replace councillors in the municipalities of Phumelela, Moqhaka and Motheo because of incompetence. Moqhaka includes the towns of Kroonstad, Steynsrus and Viljoenskroon, while Motheo includes Bloemfontein, Thaba'Nchu, Botshabelo, Ladybrand, Clocolan and Wepener, all of which have seen protest action. Letoane Sello, the mayor of Phumelela municipality, defended his record by pointing out that about 1,000 residents of Ezenzeleni would have access to waterborne sewerage by early next year. "The government intends to get rid of the bucket system in the entire country by 2015," he said. "People lack patience - they think within 10 years they should have access to everything. It takes time and money to do these things," he explained. Some residents of the neighbouring town of Harrismith, which forms part of the Maluti-A-Phofung municipality, also expressed anger at the lack of basic services in the area. Martha Mohumane, a shack dweller and former domestic worker, applied for a government-subsidised house in 1997. "I am still waiting, while others who applied after me have already got homes," she said. Mohumane shares her one-room shack with seven other adults - her daughters - as well as their children. Joyce Mthembu, a social worker who runs Harrismith's information centre, blamed the simmering unrest in the area on a high unemployment rate of 60 percent. She acknowledged that people still lacked essentials such as sanitation, clean water and housing, Mthembu said: "People are frustrated because they do not have jobs; they do not have access to tools, such as computers, to prepare CVs to gain employment to help them improve their lives." After a long battle with authorities, Mthembu managed to access a grant from the department of social welfare to start a skills centre, to train unemployed women from the Intabazwe township of Harrismith in crafts such as beadwork. She is now trying to raise funds for a skills centre for the unemployed youth. The closure of a leading clothing manufacturer and employer in the town has exacerbated an already bad situation. "People are surviving on pensions, grants and allowances everywhere," said Sydney Khumalo, a former prison warden, who, along with his wife, is living off a child support grant of $20 a month. One such resident is unemployed Teresa Mazibuko who, along with 14 other members of her family, lives on her mother's pension of around $100 a month in a two-roomed house in Ezenzeleni township. In an bid to tackle unemployment Phumelela mayor Sello said he was negotiating with the department of labour to initiate a skills centre in Phumelela municipality.