Mayor helps poor learners

The office of the mayor of the Ngwathe Local Municipality has set aside funds to help mitigate the impacts of poverty in the territory, by targeting school-going children.

The initiative, part of the municipality’s service delivery programme themed, ‘2013: The ear of improved service delivery’, entails handing out uniforms and groceries to needy children.

This, according to Mochela, is just a component of the municipality’s renewed zeal to service delivery that is people-centred and places more of a premium on those on the periphery of society.

“We declared 2013 as the year to improve our service to the people of this municipality. Our fundamental mandate as local government is the upliftment of the social-economic conditions of our people, as enshrined in the Local Government: Municipal Systems Act, number 32 of 2000,” said Mochela.

She admitted that many people in the area were living in poverty and the authorities were duty-bound to intervene in their plight.

“In the light of this, we have initiated a mayoral poverty alleviation programme because we could not sit back and watch our people perish from the hunger they experience on a daily basis. Our core focus as Ngwathe Local Municipality is service delivery.

For us to deliver improved services to our people and fight poverty at the same time, we need the buy in of different sectors of society including the business community.

“We have especially been inspired by both President Jacob Zuma’s State of the Nation Address and Premier Ace Magashule’s State of the Province Address, which identified education as the starting point in fighting poverty. We have so far visited Heilbron where we handed over new school uniforms to about 80 learners at secondary and primary schools. We also gave groceries to their families,” revealed Mochela.

She added that the programme would have its own budget and said the municipality will continue to develop projects aimed at alleviating poverty in the municipality.

“This is an on-going poverty alleviation project that seeks to show our people that, as an ANC-led government, we are fully aware or their humble conditions and we are taking action to provide both short term and long term solutions. We have embarked on a similar project at Vredefort where we worked with ANC structures that fund-raised and donated school uniforms to at least 100 learners. In Koppies, 35 learners benefited from the programme, with their families receiving groceries.”

The next phase will include families and schools in Parys and Edenville, and according to Mochela, this is in line with the municipality’s mandate to prioritise education and fight poverty.

Computers were also donated by the municipality to schools for media centres. Both secondary and primary schools were beneficiaries of the project,” she said.