'All ratepayers must come to the party'

White ratepayer associations have created "a parallel government" and are undermining the ability of municipalities to deliver services, Minister of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs Sicelo Shiceka said today.

He told a media briefing in Cape Town that white ratepayers were placing their money for municipal services in private trust accounts.

"We have discovered that over 280 ratepayers in South Africa, which unfortunately are white organisations, have created a parallel government," he said.

"They take the money instead of paying service to municipalities and put it in a trust account. That undermines ability of municipalities to deliver services."

Shiceka said the government wanted to engage with everybody to sort out municipal problems.

"Everybody must come to the party. That is what municipal service turnaround is all about. It must be driven by all the people."

Shiceka said it had been discovered that all violent protests, "without exception", were happening because people were "raising things with municipalities without getting a response".

"Anger has been boiling up. What we are doing is developing a mechanism to deal with all issues raised with municipalities."

He said a plan on how to cap violent protests would be presented at a meeting with MECs and local government leaders on tomorrow.

Shiceka compared the service protests to babies crying for their parents.

"We have found it is like a baby who cries when it sees a parent. We are dealing with the issues now people are raising these things more so that they can get attention.

"By 2014 we would like a situation where there are no violent protests in South Africa, where we are able to be responsive; we can tend to people's issues.

"They don't have to go to the streets to burn tyres, to burn property, for them to be listened to."

Sapa

Posted at 02:12PM Mar 03, 2010 by Editor in Residential  |  Comments[7]