Residents in Olifantshoek under Collins Chabane Local Municipality mobalise another strike for service delivery to start on Tuesday this week. They say enough is enough with constant promises and endless excuses by the ANC leadership in ward one. “We are going back to the street because these people are playing with us. There will be no elections, if there will be no tar road and electricity”, one of the angry residents said.
This comes after a community meeting held at Rungulani Tribal Office on Sunday the 12th of July 2026, where the ward committee led by the ward councilor, Elias Maringa, reported back to the community. “A five-kilometer upgrade from gravel to tar has been given to D3164 from four ways to Rotterdam”, Maringa said in his report. He added that the contractor will start before October 2026.
The ward committee failed several times to provide tangible evidence to support their promises to the mass. “There is no single meeting where they gave us something in black and white”, said Shane Baloyi, general secretary of Pfukani Olifantshoek Community Group, a community forum for service delivery. The residents demand basic services such as water, electricity and an upgrade of D3164 road from gravel to tar. “We demand water, electricity and the road now”, Baloyi added.
The community were promised and have been patiently waiting for the road to be upgraded for more than two decades. They demonstrated a faded patience on the 9th of March 2026, when they took to the street and barricade roads with burning tires and stones.