ISSUE 243 - FREE
4
OCTOBER 2019
COMMUNITY NEWS. ORIGINAL - ACCURATE - FIRST
017 631 1903 / 017 631 1845 • admin@thebulletin.co.za • 1 Kiewiet Street, Secunda (Lake Umuzi)
What is wrong in eMbalenhle? S
ocial media is buzzing since The Bulletin posted a story of an unborn baby on Facebook. The unborn baby was discovered in eMbalenhle on Friday, 27 September, in extension 21 (Chris Hani). On Friday morning a family member woke up and prepared to go to work when he went to the tap behind the house to fetch water. He was shocked to find the outside toilet with overflowing sewerage and the whole yard was under sewerage too. That was when he called all members of the family to see the ghastly scene that was in front of him. The family called the Govan Mbeki Municipality plumbing department to come and assist. The Govan Mbeki plumber took some time to arrive and at about 08h00 in the morning the family was inside the house when the children were outside playing. Suddenly the drain clogged up and sewerage gushed outside. A devastating incident took place… an unborn baby came out of the drainpipes! They were traumatised and called police and the ward Councillor to come and witness the remains of the unborn baby. An ambulance and the Forensics team were summoned to the scene. The remains of the unborn baby were suspected to be the reason why the drain was blocked. This was noted after the removal of the unborn baby from the sewer. This is the third incident in eMbalenhle, since January 2019, where the remains of an unborn baby has been discovered. This comes down to the fact: people are doing illegal abortions even though there are designated places where one can terminate a pregnancy legally. What went wrong in our community that people are uneducated and are not aware of the government institutions that are available to help them? Are people still having unsafe sex, even though the government provides free condoms in many public places? The distribution and supply of condoms is very high in South Africa. If you have unprotected sex why do you not protect yourself with, for example, birth control injections available in the clinics? A few months ago, an old lady who
makes a living by collecting used cans was busy at dumping site in Mandela section in eMbalenhle, when she saw a horrific thing; remains of an unborn baby. The list goes on and on, but what is noticeable is the increasing number of these incidents in the community. In what kind of society do we live if our children are seeing things like this and who has the right to take human life? Why are we becoming the society that is so heartless? How is killing an innocent soul ok? Do you sleep at night and are you so proud of killing an innocent soul? One of the comments on social media said: “eMbalenhle women are so brave. They hold funerals alone they don’t even need thecommunity to assist them.” At the time of printing this story there was no statement released by the police on which case has been opened and the ward councillor could not comment. It ends now. Stop illegal abortions if you need help please use the designated government facilities. - Sandile Mkhwanazi
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Govan Mbeki Municipality under scrutiny Govan Mbeki is finally under scrutiny In an extraordinary council meeting held today at the GMM council chambers, an item was tabled to give consideration for the Terms of Reference of a Task Team between Gert Sibande District Municipality and Govan Mbeki municipality. The Intergovernmental Relations Framework act no. 13 of 2005, provides for cooperation by the different spheres of Government. The Task Team is for the intervention in Govan Mbeki Municipality as prescribed by law. The Task Team must investigate and make recommendations on the following: (1) The causes of the non-delivery of services to the community of Govan
Mbeki (2) Steps to be taken to make the municipality financially viable (3) Capacity building for the staff of the municipality (4) Functionality of Public Participation (5) Councillors capacity building for effective governance (6) Implementation of the bench-marking with the Steve Tshwete municipality, or other Municipality. The Bulletin spoke to opposition leader DA Cllr Ciska Jordaan. She responded to our questions with the following: “It is surprising that this municipality had not yet been placed under administration, considering the various intervention and turnaround strategies the ANC led council has continuously attempted with stakeholders such as Cogta, provincial
legislature, Sasol and now, less surprisingly, the GSDM which could have gotten involved much sooner. These financial turnaround strategies had been attempted ever since 2016, yet the debt of the municipality has more than doubled since then, with the ESKOM and Rand Water debt having passed the R1bn mark earlier this year and growing at an enormous rate. The DA has called for the municipality to be placed under administration on numerous occasions more especially following a disclaimer audit opinion and unfunded budgets being pushed through the council in the same manner - with an unconcerned ANC majority vote.”