09 Jul 2013

The newly-elected Matenge Village Development Committee (VDC) in the North East District is set to turn the village’s prospects around.

The VDC chairperson, Mr Makala Makala said in an interview that since the village had for many years been lagging behind in terms of developments, it was his committee’s burning desire to see a swift reversal of the situation.

Mr Makala also indicated that though the committee, which was elected into office in June, was yet to meet to draw up an annual plan that would serve as a guide for its activities for the year, he was optimistic that given the calibre of the new office bearers, a lot would be achieved during their tenure.

He said the fact that the new committee’s composition included sections of the community, which were normally marginalised such as women and youth, was a plus for them and would ensure that issues affecting all community members were addressed.

“My roadmap as the chairperson is to do a job allocation for all the VDC members. This will ensure that each one of us has a role to play and will also serve to expose our strengths and weaknesses,” he noted. Furthermore, he indicated that the job allocation would help monitor progress on the tasks each member would be handling.

Mr Makala was also confident that they would be able to resolve all the issues left pending by the past committees, citing among such, collection of outstanding payments from tenants of VDC houses as well as following up and addressing the issue of why some VDC plots did not have landboard certificates.

On a different issue, the chairperson decried the lack of collaboration among different committees in the village; something he said had been going on for a number of years now. He said he would work tirelessly to bring the committees together.

“The issue of each committee working in isolation has been a problem for a long time. My desire is for all the committees to meet on a quarterly basis to give each other support,” he said.

Mr Makala also indicated that his committee would time and again go back to residents to give progress reports on developments or issues being attended to as well as to solicit ideas.

He said it was his view that having been elected to oversee the development of the village did not in any mean residents could not contribute in a meaningful way through giving the committee ideas of how best to go about its duties.

Kgosi Kutlwano Matenge noted that committees in his village had for quite some time not been functioning optimally.

He observed however, that with the recent election into office of the VDC and the Parents Teachers Association (PTA), the situation would in the foreseeable future turn into a success story.

Though generally pleased with residents’ attendance of kgotla meetings and participation in village developments, Kgosi Matenge was however unhappy with the youth’s reluctance to participate in village activities.

“Youth participation in community matters is way below par. Though many of them are away because of working in other places, the few that are here are not doing enough,” he elaborated.

He stated that in a bid to address the situation, the village leadership had recently called the youth to a meeting to find out what the root cause of their reluctance was; a forum at which he said the youth requested to be given time to meet to discuss their issues before reporting back. ENDS