Note to Editors: Please find attached English and Afrikaans soundbites by Cllr Eleanor Quinta and Sesotho soundbite by Cllr Ana Motaung.
– DA calls for urgent appointment of Chief Town Planner over questionable building activities in MaP,
– No Chief Town Planner for over eight years,
– Unregulated development threatens communities.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) in Maluti-a-Phofung (MaP) will write to the Municipal Manager to ensure that urgent steps are taken to appoint a Chief Town Planner. The DA is deeply concerned by the alarming increase in questionable building activities across the municipality, which appears to coincide with the continued absence of a permanently appointed town planner.
For more than eight years, the municipality has operated without an officially appointed Chief Town Planner.
An alarming number of buildings are being constructed in MAP, and the DA is concerned that this is due to the Town Planning office being managed by an intern. For more than eight years, the MAP municipality has not had an officially appointed town planner.
The DA suspects this is more than an oversight and will raise questions at the provincial level about the municipality’s failure to appoint a Chief Town Planner.
Town planners design, regulate, and most importantly, manage the use of rural and urban land. Town planner duties include ensuring that municipalities are safe, functional and organised, a lack in MaP. Currently, such highly sensitive issues are handled by an intern under the supervision of COGTA and the Municipal Planning Tribunal.
The absence of a town planner leads to unregulated, haphazard development that harms the community. Community safety, infrastructure strain, and degradation of quality of life are all consequences of a mismanaged department.
In MaP, the strain is already felt through water shortages, erratic power supply, and inadequate sanitation. Furthermore, communities no longer feel safe in their neighbourhoods due to unchecked development.
The DA in MaP has repeatedly raised concerns in council and portfolio committee meetings over the non-appointment of a town planner.
The DA will continue to hold the municipality accountable to ensure that development is properly regulated and that residents are protected from the consequences of poor planning and governance.