Service delivery ups and downs

By Emily Setona

QWAQWA – Free State premier Mxolisi Dukwana says the provincial government is not promising anything when it comes to projects that have been launched in Maluti-a-Phofung (MAP), meaning that the community must be patient because the work will start when it starts.

During his State of the Province Address speech held at the Phuthaditjaba Multipurpose hall on February 29, Dukwana quoted South African president Cyril Ramaphosa who in his inauguration speech on May 25 2019 said: “The challenges that we face are real. But they are not insurmountable.”

According to Dukwana, the continued challenges with water supply and quality, waste water management, refuse removal and road maintenance in the province’s cities and towns require urgent intervention.

In a subsequent address to the media, the premier said in relation to the launched road maintenance project in MAP, the project has several issues that must be ironed out before the project can officially commence.

Audience listening to premier Mxolisi Dukwana’s State of Province Address.

“I’ve said many times that we are not promising anything, and we have committed ourselves to work with the people because we realize that the people are their own liberators. Regarding the roads project, we came here with the MEC concerned to launch the project and the appointment of the service provider has already been done but the appointment of subcontractors is still outstanding. Once that is finished and concluded then the work will start,” Dukwana said.

He clearly indicated that the projects will start once the problems that he mentioned are sorted out. People have been identified who will be working on the project, but this road maintenance project will only start once everything has been finalized.

Dukwana also outlined the following noteworthy achievements in terms of service delivery and said despite these milestones being worthy of mentioning the focus must also be on quality and the consistency of the service delivery:

A total of 94 percent of households in the province had access to tap water inside their dwellings, off-site or on-site; the percentage of households with access to improved sanitation; improved from 85.8 percent in 2020 to 87.9 percent in 2022;
households using flush toilets was at 78.7 percent; and lastly households with refuse removal once per week totalled 72.2%.