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Community members demonstrate with placards.

“We are not part of the new municipality” - traditional leaders

 

Well-known traditional leaders, which included Thovhele Ntumeni Masia, Thovhele Nesengani, Thovhele Davhana and representatives from Thovhele Netshimbupfe, as well as many traditional leaders serving under the four chiefs, took part in a protest march last Friday, demanding that their areas be excluded from the newly envisaged fourth municipality.

The protesters also sent a petition to the Municipal Demarcation Board, dissociating them from presentations made on March 21 at the Thohoyandou Indoor Sports centre that the people of Vuwani wanted Vhembe to have four municipalities. This follows the de-establishment of the Mutale Local municipality.

Leading the march last Friday, Thovhele Masia submitted a petition to the Municipal Demarcation Board that he and other traditional leaders around Vuwani and their people did not want to belong to a new municipality that would include his area and Malamulele. He criticised members of the Vuwani Demarcation task team who submitted that they would like to meet with the people of Malamulele and be part of the new municipality.

“Let them go,” said Masia, referring to those who wanted to mix with the Malamulele people in the proposed new municipality. Masia said his people had nothing to do with the Vuwani Demarcation task team, a combination of community structures that made a submission to the public hearings held by the board in Thohoyandou.

The Vuwani Sanco Clusters, however, criticised the chief and sided with the presentations made by the Vuwani Demarcation Task team. During these presentations, Velly Mtileni of the Vuwani Demarcation Task Team said that the people of  Wards 1, 2, 3, 4 and 7 in the Makhado Municipality wanted Vhembe to have a fourth municipality.

Mtileni said recent marches by the people of Waterval in Makhado and the people of Malamulele in Thulamela showed that three municipalities would not be able to service the entire area of the Vhembe District Municipality. Mtileni said Vuwani was a neglected area and the town did not have a single shopping complex.

“We have been neglected, just as the Malamulele towns of Saselamani and Malamulele were neglected by the Thulamela Municipality, and together we will be able to develop our areas with the new municipality,” said Mtileni.

At the hearings, Chief Masia submitted that he and other traditional leaders wanted to remain in the Makhado Municipality, because they were witnessing a lot of development here.

 

Photographed during the handing over of the memorandum are, from left to right, Chief Davhana,Vhembe District Chief Whip,Tshifhiwa Dali, Thovhele Masia, Thovhele Nesangani, a representative from Netshimbupfe and Chief Livhuwani Matsila.

Community members demonstrate with placards.

 

Date:08 May 2015

By: Kaizer Nengovhela

Kaizer Nengovhela started writing stories for Limpopo Mirror in 2000. Prior to that he had a five year stint at Phala-Phala FM as sports presenter. In 2005 Kaizer received an award from the province's premier as Best Sports Presenter. The same year he was also nominated as Best Sports Reporter by the Makhado Municipality. Kaizer was awarded the Mathatha Tsedu award in 2014.

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