Scores of frustrated residents in one of the most remote rural villages in Qumbu picked up shovels, pickaxes, wheelbarrows and buckets and fixed a gravel road passing near their homes, saying they were fed up with waiting for the municipality.
Gandana villagers, young and old, spent hours on Monday collecting huge rocks, fetching water from a nearby river and loading their wheelbarrows with isabhunge (gravel material) and sand, which they used to repair the road full of potholes.
Despite most of the village depending on social grants to survive, each home in the village contributed R20 to buy more than 15 bags of cement, which was used as part of their repair job on the dilapidated road.
Gandana is one of the four villages within the Ngwemnyama administrative area under Ward 10 in the Kumkani Mhlontlo local municipality.
On Wednesday, the villagers said they were tired of always fighting with authorities whenever they needed service delivery from their municipality.
Ngwemnyama also consists of Mncetyana, Ntababusuku and Lalini villages.
Ironically, council speaker Eddie Pula hails from Ntababusuku, the villagers said.
One Gandana's residents, Noma-Efese Tshuta, said the villagers had managed to raise R3,000 to buy cement and hire a vehicle to deliver the material to the village.
“We are the ones who are struggling and have people who get sick and have to be carried on the back to where an ambulance can pick them up,” she said.
“Before we did not have a road at all and we had to embark on a protest and threaten not to vote before it was made about five years ago.
"We are now tired of having to fight for basic service delivery from the municipality.
"They just do not care about us. Hence, we just took matters into our own hands.
"Why should we have to beg them for service delivery?”
The gravel road links many villages to the urban centres in Qumbu.
The route is serviced by a bus company funded by the state.
Though there are bakkies which also transport people to town, many of the rural communities, particularly the elderly, rely on the bus service.
However, Tshuta said the road had developed huge potholes months ago after it was battered by rains.
The situation was reported to the area’s ward councillor who allegedly promised to escalate the matter to the municipal bosses in Mhlontlo.
But months later, Tshuta said, the councillor still had not returned to update the community on whether the road would be fixed.
She said the village also did not have any taps and those who did not have water tanks in their homes were forced to fetch water from rivers.
This was despite the municipality promising to install taps with running water in Gandana years ago.
“The summer season is upon us and our biggest worry is that should that gravel road not be fixed, it will continue to be degraded to such a point that the bus company might refuse to allow their bus to continue servicing this route,” Tshuta said.
“We asked for this bus because our people were struggling to get to town and come back home on time.
"They relied on the bakkies from other villages and sometimes would arrive very late from town. But the bus leaves town at 2pm and they get home before it gets dark.”
Another villager, Nceba Babane, said the village was still lagging behind when it came to basic services from the government.
He claimed this happened while other villages in Ngwemnyama were getting preferential treatment from the municipality when it came to service delivery, like the provision of proper roads and access to clean water.
There are two schools in the area and sometimes scholar transport bakkies drop pupils midway and they have to walk the rest of the way on foot due to the dilapidated gravel road.
Questions were sent to Mhlontlo municipal spokesperson Mamela Mangcotywa. She had not responded at the time of publication.
OR Tambo district municipality spokesperson Ncebakazi Kolwane had also not responded at the time of publication on Wednesday.
But the UDM councillor in Mhlontlo, Zakheni Nondaka, said it was embarrassing and a huge disappointment that ordinary citizens had to use their money to fix a crucial road.
“We are going to have to step in and buy bags of cement to assist the people complete this job," he said.
"In reality, this does not paint a good image about our municipality when people have to take money meant to take care of themselves and their families and use it on a road.
"This as the municipality gets an annual budget to attend to dilapidated road networks, including access roads in villages.”