Pretoria - A vote for the Good political party in Tshwane would translate into fixing everything going wrong in the metro and ushering good service delivery.
This is according to the party’s mayoral candidate Sarah Mabotsa, who spoke at length with the Pretoria News about her party’s service delivery plans should it be voted into power at the November 1 municipal polls.
Mabotsa said her party was ready to hit the ground running by starting to implement its promises to residents in the first 100 days in office.
With a public service career spanning over two decades, she expressed confidence that her knowledge about government systems would place her in a good stead to lead the City of Tshwane.
She grew up in Tembisa, but she stays in Centurion.
So far her party has become the third to unveil its mayoral candidate, while the ANC and EFF were yet to announce theirs.
Mabotsa will be up against the incumbent mayor Randall Williams for DA and ActionSA's Abel Tau, who are mayoral candidates for their respective parties.
Her participation in politics was motivated by the Good leader Patricia de Lille, who doubles as a Cabinet Minister of the Public Works Department.
"My desire to fix our country was rejuvenated by our leader Patricia de Lille, who changed the Department of Public Works which I have been working for. I realised that if she is able to change the department the way she is doing it and her history of fighting corruption I needed to join the party," she said.
According to her, the City was continuously embroiled in financial problems, which included recurring irregular expenditure such as the R2.9 billion it incurred in the 2019/20 financial year.
“This is our money that we should be spending to fix services but it goes to waste,” Mabotsa said. She found another fault with the City as hiring unqualified personnel, which inhibited service delivery.
The party, she said, has hatched four themes – spatial justice, economic justice, social justice and environmental justice – through which it would roll out its service delivery priorities to residents.
Through spatial justice, the party intended to build more houses for people in better locations.
"Remember, during apartheid people would stay far from where they are working and they had to use their last money to go to work," Mabotsa said.
On Friday she joined De Lille on the campaign trail in Mamelodi, Eersterust, Saulsville and Church Square where they interacted with residents.
"People are still struggling there. People still don’t have access to water. People are still carrying water on their heads with buckets. People still don’t have electricity. Others are using izinyoka (illegal connections). After 27 years of democracy people are still suffering like this,” she said.
According to her, voting for the same party won’t change the service delivery predicament people found themselves in.
Fighting corruption and consequence management would form part of the priorities fulfilled by the party.
Homelessness and drug abuse, which is one of the social challenges faced by the municipality, would be attended to, according to Mabotsa.
"We have to treat this as a health issue and expand drug rehabilitation services to give young people an opportunity to get help," she said.
Water and electricity were expensive in the municipality, and GOOD would come up with a way of reducing their costs to residents.
The provision of clean and drinkable water to residents of Hammanskraal and many others in the city would also be part of Mabotsa's service delivery agenda. "Other politicians just go to Hammanskraal and they don’t even drink that water because they know that the water is not safe” she said.
She was optimistic that the party was ready to take over Tshwane and provide services people expect from the government.
"We have our 100 days plan in place so that after the elections then we are ready to deliver. We are not going to start by drafting so many documents," she said.
Pretoria News