Mayor fulfill his Promise

Local News /02 June 2020, 16:59pm/ Nthabiseng Mokoena

Moqhaka Executive Mayor Lucky Phooko Addressing Winne Mandela park residents.

Steynsrus: Cold times of winter won’t be felt by the residents of Winnie mandela park in Steynsrus, after their homes electrified by Moqhaka Local Municipality.

The Executive Mayor Lucky Phooko Launched electrofication of more than 200 houses today.

After he took the helm Phooko promised residents, to prioritize the electricity roll over of the settlement.

Moqhaka partnered with power utility Eskom (SOE), to connect electricity to over 300 households.

Phooko told the beneficiaries the project will take place in different phases, adding that soon all the households would be using electricity.

“This is phase one, and another phase will come and eventually all of you would be connected,” he said.

The mayor emphasized the importance of phase connections.

“When Eskom visited this settlement for the first time to conduct inspection, they found only 300 households, therefore the power utility made their budget based on the number of households they found during their visit.”

“We are going to spend more than R4 million to do this project, as a result we cannot wait to send second phase proposal, while we are given money to do the first phase project, we appeal to members of community to be patient because if we don’t complete this project now, will have to return the money to Eskom, and the process to get that money again is very long,” he added.

Since the informal settlement was established it has grown to over 600 households.

The project which is set to kickstart on Wednesday 03rd June, will create more than 100 job opportunities.

“Stynsrus is one of the towns which is badly affected by high unemployment rate, this project will create job opportunities for people who are residing here, we know it is short term project, however it will assist our people a lot to put food on the table,” said Mayor Lucky Phooko.

One of the community members Ntaoleng Motaung has acknowledged the efforts of the mayor, calling for the project to cover others as well.

“We are very happy that Mayor and his team fulfilled their promises, at least now we will be able to use electricity like other locations, however we want to appeal to the Mayor to fast-rack second phase because other people should get electricity as well.” said Motaung