Note to editors: Please find attached English and Afrikaans soundbites by Cllr Tjaart van der Walt and Sesotho by Cllr David Masoeu.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) has again written to the Municipal Manager, Mayor and acting Head of the Department of Planning for clarity regarding a seeming failure by Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality to process appeals to Municipal Planning Tribunal decisions on land use applications.
The DA has become aware of dozens of cases where development applications had been approved or not approved and appeals were submitted to the municipality. Both the applicant and any other objectors and appellants are kept in the dark following appeals to such cases, despite very clear timeframes and procedures prescribed by the Spatial Planning and Land Use Management Act and Regulations as well as the Mangaung Planning Bylaws of 2016 and 2021.
This leaves the applicants with uncertainty regarding the status of their application and could cost potential investors in Mangaung millions. Uncertainties about their investment remain for months and even years.
We have advocated for years for appointing crucial staff in the Mangaung Planning Department such as engineers, town planners and building inspectors. The department has two vacancies for every post that is filled.
The continued failure by the ANC to ensure the permanent appointment of capable professional staff in this struggling department from the HoD, General Manager, engineers, town planners, the building control officer and building inspectors is a testament to the skewed priorities of the ANC governed Mangaung. If spatial development, the formalisation of informal settlements and the creation of sustainable communities were indeed a priority of their government, these vacancies would have been prioritised years ago.
The DA has repeatedly offered solutions to many of the challenges the planning department is facing, only to be ignored. One of the ways to find constructive solutions would be to ensure monthly meetings of the multiparty Section 80: Planning Committee.
While the DA-governed City Of Cape Town created 123,000 new jobs between January and December 2023, the collapsed ANC-governed Mangaung lost 21,000 jobs in this same time. Therefore voters need to register and vote for DA to Rescue the Free State on 29 May 2024.