North West MEC for Health, Madoda Sambatha says they have deployed tracers across all wards in the province in quest to fight against COVID-19 pandemic.
Sambatha said his department will be working in partnership with the South African National Taxi Council (SANTACO) and the North West Community Safety and Transport Management.
“This programme we are launching is the transportation of tracers across the province. It’s a minimum of 95 taxis, for now. They are meant to spread across the province. They will be transporting tracers per ward, which is a minimum of 10 and it’s around a maximum of 40 in each ward.
“They will be transported on the basis of the door-to-door tracing and also on the basis of community awareness campaigns. They will then link those that are traced to quarantine and isolation facilities. It’s meant to ensure that the department responds vibrantly in a ward where people are,” he said.
Sambatha further said the initiative will limit the movement of people who are unaware of the dangers they are posing to themselves.
Meanwhile, the North West MEC for Community Safety and Transport Management, Sello Lehari said: “The partnership with the taxi industry will assist in the fight against COVID-19. We value the partnership that we are launching today with our taxi industry. This initiative will indeed assist the province in ending this pandemic.”
SANTACO’s provincial chairperson, Herman Sebegwe welcomed the programme. Sebegwe said the taxi sector is ready to provide transport as it is a requirement. He said it is expected from them as the industry and the initiative came at the right time.
“Most of our long-distance operators have been negatively affected by COVID-19 because even now they are not able to operate at full taxi capacity,” said Sebegwe.
Picture: Sanco in North West during media briefing in Mahikeng
By OBAKENG MAJE
South African National Civic Organisation (SANCO) in NorthWest says it supports the decision of the ANC Interim Provincial Committee (IPC) to remove troikas at five municipalities.
SANCO’s Provincial Executive Committee (PEC) held a media briefing in Mahikeng on Tuesday. SANCO provincial secretary, Packett Seaketso said they believe that the action was taken by the ANC IPC will go a long way in restoring confidence in the masses and fast-track delivery of quality basic services to the people.
“We believe that this decision will improve financial management, deal decisively with fraud and corruption, ensure accountability, compliance, and consequence management for poor performance as well as to bring about capable political leadership and improved oversight,” he said.
Seaketso also lambasted those who call for the disbandment of the ANC IPC. He defended the structure and said the ANC IPC like any other structure is not perfect.
“It has its challenges many of which are deliberately manufactured through the convention and coordination of meetings organised in very dark corners some known past and current leaders. The many currents choreographed calls for the disbandment of the IPC has a similar hallmark of the recently choreographed national call for the removal of the President.
“Those who make this call has a pre-Nasrec pre-occupation at the time when our people are confronted with poverty, unemployment, inequality, and the cancer of corruption and poor service delivery. It is clear by their continued call for the deportation of the IPC coordinator, Hlomani Chauke that we are dealing with people who have a Bophuthatswana hangover,” he said.
Seaketso added that the ANC IPC has a task to supervise and guide all ANC caucuses and its deployees without fear or favour. He further said they are encouraged that the ANC IPC has been very relentless in the execution of this important task in the interest of the people who voted for no individual but the ANC.
“As SANCO, we are alive to the reality that there is a concerted campaign to deface the work of the ANC IPC by making it difficult for it to operate. We are aware that there are people targeting certain ANC IPC members through smear campaign and character assassination.
“SANCO and its allies will continue to support and collaborate with the ANC IPC as long as it carries its mandate without any equivocation. We also call on the ANC National Executive Committee not to be deluded by this proliferation of political choreography,” said Seaketso.
He also launched a scathing attack on the ANCWL acting provincial secretary, Bitsa Lenkopane. Seaketso said that the ANCWL in the North West has defined itself as a representative and advocate of a particular group of some fictionally anointed women.
“When the North West Premier, Prof Job Mokgoro was about to pronounce a reshuffling, the same ANCWL celebrated despite the fact that several women were going to be affected by the reshuffling and being replaced by some ANCWL’s preferences such as Bitsa Lenkopane despite her horrendous criminal record.
“We call on the ANC IPC to take disciplinary action against Lenkopane for agitating for mass defiance of structural resolutions. This group of the ANCWL is obsessed with defending five women at the expense of service delivery of thousands of women and children in our province,” he said.
ANCWL acting provincial secretary, Bitsa Lenkopane said: “I must indicate that I am an acting ANCWL in the province and I am a product of a conference. I have branches that the ANCWL in the province is leading and respond to the needs of majority within the communities of the province on daily basis.
“So, do not tell me about a structure sa mahamba ka ntlwana (makeshift structure), where everybody can wake up and say I am SANCO and I’m leading. However, what I am communicating here is a position of a legitimate structure that is the league of the ANC.
“When you tell me about those people who even alleged that I am a convicted criminal and all that, this is personal and I will deal with them personally. It is not what they use to do with their handlers and masters to dent me thinking that they were killing me,” Lenkopane said.
She also threatened to take legal action against those who alleged that she is a convicted criminal. Lenkopane concluded that SANCO provincial leadership that held a media briefing today is ‘bogus’ and she will call on the ‘legitimate’ SANCO structure to respond.
The Guardian 