The meeting between the Westonaria Resident’s Association, the Minister for Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Mr Lechesa Tsenoli; Gauteng MEC for Human Settlement and Local Government Ms LH Mekgwe; Gauteng Provincial Alliance; church leaders and education representatives, took place today, as agreed in the Declaration made by all participants on 26 October. The Meeting took place at the offices of the West Rand District Municipality.
The group had invited the Minister and the MEC to engage with them on a consultative process aimed at finding an amicable and sustainable solution to the problems and challenges facing the community of Bekkersdal. A declaration that outlined the demands of the community was drawn up by the community, and this was to form the basis of the discussion.
At today’s meeting, it was proposed that following the meeting, a declaration should be made covering the following factors:
- A task team/technical team should be appointed to drive the service delivery programme that has been put in place, and this programme, once agreed, should be allowed to continue to execute its mandate.
- A Forensic Investigation on allegations of corruption in the Westonaria Municipality and Bekkersdal Urban Renewal programme will commence with immediate effect.
NB: It was proposed for the Minister to act immediately and arbitrarily place the municipality under arbitration, however, the Minister declared that he could not accede to this demand without further consideration and consultation.
In endorsing the declaration clause on transitional arrangements, the meeting agreed to establish a high level technical intervention team to explore the best possible option, in law, to give effect to the process of requesting the Demarcation Board to merge the local municipalities of Randfontein and Westonaria.
On this matter, the team will engage the Greater Westonaria Concerned Residents Association within the next two weeks.
The above task/technical team will report to the Minister, MEC and the Residence association on the monthly basis. It should be noted that the concerned group left the meeting before a final resolution on all matters was made.
