Riot Hlatshwayo

Riot Hlatshwayo

When Bushbuckridge, now known as Bohlabela, was incorporated into Mpumalanga from Limpopo, local residents thought they would enjoy a better life.

In fact early last year officials used improved service delivery to justify the incorporation.

But today residents of Bohlabela say they are worse off than they were under the Limpopo administration.

And they are going to do something about it.

The bizarrely titled Gangsters Against Inefficient Service Delivery (GAISD) say they are working toward improving service delivery.

GAISD chairman Joe Muhayise told Sowetan that the most affected section was public healthcare where they don't even have ambulances to ferry the sick and injured.

He gave an example of a incident on Thursday at Thulamahashe's Beverly Hills section where an ambulance had been parked about 2km from an accident scene, but took more than an hour to get to the patient.

Health and Social Services Department spokesman Mpho Gabashane promised to investigate the incident.

Muhayise said another incident had happened at the Mhala magistrates' court on the same day.

Mandla Mathebula, a third year student at the Vaal University of Technology, was expected to apply for bail in a murder case earlier that day. Though the court had been scheduled to start at 9am, it only sat three hours later.

Asked about the delay, Chief Magistrate Sam Nkuna said he had not been told that the court was ready to sit.

"I am a magistrate and have to be called to the court. Go to office 19 and challenge the prosecutor instead of me," Nkuna told journalists

The prosecutor, City Rikhotso, was aggressive when approached.

He said: "I don't speak to the press."

Muhayise said the committee would approach the executive mayor, Milton Morema, about both incidents in the hope he would intervene.