Treasury Head, Simiso Magagula leads social ills intervention in Harding Communities
Under the Operation Sukuma theme “TB is curable”, schools and communities of Bashaweni and KwaMbotho areas poured their hearts out about the poor state of school infrastructure, vandalism of schools, drug abuse, crime and poverty.
Inkosi Buyiswa Zungu of Zungu Tribal Authority in ward 2, asked government to assist them fight rampant crime in her area. “Our community is subjected to drug abuse which leads to crime and other social ills in the area. We need cooperation by all government departments and communities alike so that these problems can be addressed efficiently. Further, we do not have clinics. We travel through forests and dark areas to seek medical help, but the prevalence of crime in the area makes it unsafe to do so. We request government to consider building a clinic”.
She further said that schools are broken into and useful equipment gets stolen. “Jabangweni High and Sbuthe High and Mlothwa High schools were burgled and several computers were stolen”.
Other problems include lack of water, low cost houses, lack of learner transport for kids who travel more than 20 kilometers to school as well as lack of jobs.
Petros Khalala of eSabelweni area in ward 2 said the country is celebrating Human Rights month, but conditions for employment for the disabled people like him are not created by the local municipality, uMuziwabantu Municipality.
Deputy Head of Education Department, Judy Magwaza, said they have taken down all the challenges related to school infrastructure so that they attend to them and that the lack of learner transport for over 100 learners in eBashaweni area will be followed up with the help of Transport Department.
Magagula, who is also the HOD Champion for eThekwini, said these are all challenges that need government and communities to work together.
“I am happy to hear that the war room is fully operational in this ward. This is where all community problems need to be discussed and resolved by all government departments. In terms of crime, in most cases, the community knows who the criminals are because they come from among us, but we protect them. We need to report them to the police.
Magagula said that the types of challenges raised speak directly to the objective of government’s poverty alleviation programme called Operation Sukuma Sakhe which sees all government departments coming together to work with communities in KwaZulu-Natal to address poverty-related issues and social ills.
“We will follow up on these issues until they are addressed and we should have a way of reporting back to the community about progress made”.
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