Nelson Mandela Bay mayor Mongameli Bobani received a hero’s welcome at the Chatty Community Hall in Port Elizabeth’s northern areas on Tuesday night where some community members took bitter swipes at ousted former mayor Athol Trollip.
Held amid a strong security presence, Bobani was attending one of the metro’s Integrated Development Plan (IDP) meetings which are directed at ensuring public participation in the metro’s planning for the 2018/2019 financial year.
While the meeting was held in a DA-controlled ward, and in the absence of any DA councillors, the gathering was called to gather input from residents of wards 29, 34, 35, 37, 38 and portions of ward 41 – which includes the areas of Joe Slovo and Inkandla.
Many of the participants were bused to the meeting.
The often spirited meeting saw participants, most of whom addressed officials in Xhosa, raise concerns over issues such as poor or lack of municipal lighting, crime and the poor state of roads and other infrastructure.
An overriding concern was youth unemployment, while other residents made impassioned pleas for the establishment of training and skills centres for the youth and the disabled.
One resident, who was not identified, slammed the municipal authority for hosting five disabled residents – who could not hear or speak – at a previous IDP meeting, without giving them any assistance in terms of communicating the proceedings to them.
“That was three years ago. We asked for assistance to get employment for them and still nothing has happened,” the resident said.
Marco Baauw, of ward 35, laid into the DA, which he said had controlled the ward all his life and yet had done nothing for the ward.
“There are no people from ward 35 employed at the municipality. They just do internal vacancies and shift people around without letting us in,” he said.
Blaauw took swipes at both Trollip and the DA.
Nama chief Cora Hennings, of ward 34, also spoke out about youth unemployment and took the authority to task for “not employing coloured people at the municipality”.
Korana chief Gaoxaob Kou Anib also slammed Trollip, saying the former mayor and his party had been useless.
The chief also called for all development, maintenance and cleaning work in communities, to be conducted by the communities themselves.