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The Office of the Chief Whip of the Majority Party in Parliament, Dr Mathole Motshekga, is currently conducting visits to Parliamentary Constituency Offices in Mpumalanga. Today, 23 July 2012, the PCOs in Acornhoek and Agincourt in the Ehlanzeni Region were visited. The two PCOs cover wards 13 and 17 respectively. Over 100 community members, including Ward Councillors, members of Ward Committees and representatives of traditional leaders in rural communities attended and participated in the meetings. The meetings were also attended by officials from the departments of health, education, home affairs and agriculture - who gave updates on some of the service delivery issues falling under their departments.

The two Constituency Offices were applauded by the communities for being accessible and efficient. The PCOs are fully functional under the leadership of the deployed MPs and MPLs. Constituency ManagementCommittees have been established and are functional, consisting of leaders from various structures in the areas. Community members intimated that the composition of Constituency Management Committees should be reflective of demographics, especially gender balance.

Community members were given an opportunity to raise concerns and issues affecting them, particularly as far as service delivery is concerned.
Here are some of the issues raised:

- Challenges in relation to water supply – most wards covered by the Acornhoek PCO bemoaned the state of water supply in the area. They requested that boreholes as reliable source of water be upgraded and looked after to ensure that people do not source water from rivers. They further indicated that boreholes are insufficient as some villages are quite big but covered by only one borehole.

- The supply of electricity has not been extended to some villages in the area, thereby creating a fertile ground for crime. Where electricity is supplied, government should consider installing lights in rural residential areas. However these efforts by government to provide electricity to communities are hampered by transfomers and cable theft.

- Bushbuckridge Municipality was hit by disaster a few years ago. This has exacerbated the poor state of infrastructure and particularly roads,including damaged bridges in some villages. Movement of people and goods was thus severely affected as the road network was destroyed. The area has not completely recovered from this disaster. Community members requested that the recovery plan be revisited and implemented with the necessary speed.

- Another critical area that needs attention is lack of space for graveyards.

National government was requested to assist municipalities with addressing backlogs in service delivery especially the provision of water, electricity, housing and sanitation.
Unemployment rate is also very high in the area and all spheres of government were encouraged to bring job creation projects in the municipality to alleviate the situation.

The visits to provinces will strengthen the ANC's 264 PCOs, which are spread across the country, to effectively advance an activist parliament, whose public representatives must be in touch with the people, accessible and readily intervenes in service delivery challenges in communities whenever they arise.At the end of these provincial visits, a comprehensive report on the state of PCOs, including recommendations, will be tabled before the Caucus meeting for discussion and decisions.

The Chief Whip will on Tuesday and Wednesday continue with more PCOs visits in Hazyview.