By The Executive Mayor of Mangaung Metro in the Free State Cllr. Gregory Nthatisi, flanked by his Members of the Mayoral Committee and HODs, brought services closer to the people of Thaba Nchu during his Mayoral Imbizo at Mmabana Stadium on Wednesday, 15 May 2024.
Nthatisi inspired hope to the masses that showed up to listen to what the Mayor had to say and how he can assist them. Community members were given an opportunity to ventilate their diverse challenges to which, Nthatisi, gave instruction to his MMCs and HODs to attend to them.
He told the community that he will be making three follow-up visits in Thaba Nchu over a period of six months to ensure that all the challenges identified are done away with during that period.
Gregory Nthatisi said, there are 47 000 people in the metro who need sites, only 32 000 have registered for sites, but the municipality only has 8 000 sites. In order to address the imbalance, the Executive Mayor said the City met with the Department of Human Settlement, Public Works, Rural Development to acquire more land to allocate to the people who need sites.
“We noticed in time sundry that our people while we are busy, they decide to invade open spaces, even where sites are not allocated. The painful thing about land invasions, is when it rains, the water does not flow, then we have to wake up at night and do what is called disaster management and take them out of the water and take them to a place of safety so that they do not have much damages,” said Nthatisi.
The Executive Mayor said the City decided that the people who must get land, are those who have nothing at all, those who are renting in backyards, or are staying at places that are not good for habitation but do not have houses at all.
He explained that those who have registered for sites or RDP houses, the municipality is able to see if they have a house in any part of the country. If they have houses, they do not qualify for sites or RDP houses and they are not going to be a priority on their list. He explained that even foreign nationals do not qualify for land.
Cllr Gregory Nthatisi pointed out that, in the last incident of land grabs at Lourierpark in Bloemfontein, the City learnt that most of the people who invaded the land, are people who are well-off, who have cars and houses and earn good salaries.
“These people take their beautiful cars, rush to where sites are being allocated and invade the land first before the ones who are actually struggling and are in desperate need for sites while looking for building material.
Truth of the matter is; we did not like what happened in Lourierpark, removing people from the land by force, we did not like it at all. But when we set down and surveyed the matter, we reliased that it helped us because most of the people who invaded the land were not people who are in need of sites, it were mostly people who have houses, cars and money and earn good salaries and can afford to buy sites,” said the Executive Mayor.
Nthatisi said Mangaung Metro is working on acquiring more sites to add to the current 8 000 sites to reach the number of people who need land within the City. He appealed to community members to be open in terms of living anywhere in the Metro rather than just want to get a site at the place of their birth; because sites may be available anywhere and they must be ready to move.
He further urged the residents that, when they register for sites, they must also register their spouses and children, so that should anything happen, everyone knows where the site is.
The Mayor brought number of departments with him to assist people with their needs, these include: Centlec, Home Affairs, Health and the police amongst others.
