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Service delivery and technical support in Ventersdorp in the JB Marks Local Municipality have collapsed since the amalgamation of the town into the Tlokwe Local Municipality before the 2016 local government elections.

The municipal buildings in Ventersdorp are in an advanced stage of collapse. See pictures here, here, here, and here.

Municipal workers do not have access to properly equipped offices, neither do they have access to tools of trade to respond to service delivery issues such as refuse collection, repair of potholes, and electricity, water, and sanitation infrastructure maintenance.

The result sees the people in Ventersdorp left without any semblance of service delivery.

The ANC claims that JB Marks is its best-governed municipality. But the ANC is being economical with the truth.

JB Marks obtained a score of 42 out of 100 by Ratings Afrika’s Municipal Financial Sustainability Index 2021 (MFSI), while the DA-governed Mossel Bay obtained 74, the highest score in South Africa. According to Ratings Afrika, 45 is the minimum score required to ensure viability.

The MFSI measures 6 critical areas to determine a municipality’s viability. These are liquidity management, debt management, budget best practices, affordability, and infrastructure development, which all indicates the ability of a municipality to deliver services, maintain and expand on infrastructure, such as water and sanitation reticulation, electricity distribution and distribution grid management, and the construction and maintenance of roads which all feed into local economic development and job creation.

With a score of 42, JB Marks is far from being considered a viable and responsive municipality to deliver services in the interest of the people.

The ANC in its desperation to remain in control in Potchefstroom before the 2016 Local Government Elections gerrymandered new municipal boundaries to form the JB Marks Local Municipality. Since then, the municipality, but specifically Ventersdorp, has been in a downward spiral of failed governance.

This shows that the ANC only cares about exploiting votes out of communities to secure power instead of improving people’s lives through quality basic service delivery and good governance.

The people in Ventersdorp can stop the decay of their town by voting DA on 01 November 2021 so that the DA can again govern in JB Marks to the benefit of all residents.

The DA is ready to rebuild what the ANC has destroyed in JB Marks because even according to the Ratings Afrika MFSI 2021 report, the DA gets things done.

Issued by DA Constituency Head: JB Marks Local Municipality, Cllr Chris Hattingh