By Teboho Moloi
FICKSBURG – Setsoto FM’s Head of News has dropped the microphone and picked up a campaign pamphlet.
Padi Masupe has resigned after 15 years at the Meqheleng community radio station to contest the Ward 13 seat in the November local government elections.
He will stand under the banner of the Setsoto Service Delivery Forum (SSDF).
Ward 13 covers parts of Meqheleng, Clocolan and surrounding farms under Ficksburg.
Masupe confirmed the move to _The Guard_.
“It was not an easy decision to make but one that I had to take. Our people are suffering and need leaders that can honestly fight for them for better services,” he said.
“For years I’ve seen conditions deteriorating instead of improving, with politicians making empty promises.”
Masupe says he is running because of failed sanitation in Extension 11, bad roads, and farm residents being left out of the municipality’s IDP.
Masupe joined Setsoto FM in 2011 as a junior reporter and news reader. He later presented current affairs shows, produced programmes, and was promoted to Head of News in 2017.
For 15 years he used the airwaves to hold those in power to account.
“I have always been advocating for better service delivery on radio,” he said.
“Now I want to do it from inside.”
Other parties had approached him before, he said, but he refused based on their ideologies. Now, he says, the SSDF gives him a platform to turn complaints into action.
Listeners in Meqheleng were shocked by the announcement.
From newsroom to council chamber — Masupe’s fight for service delivery has moved off-air and onto the ballot.
