Water, other issues on agenda

Talk of the Town readers will be aware of the water report which our chairperson, Dawie van Wyk, and a private engineer attended to.

We would like to report that we are in constant dialogue with the municipal manager and other representatives regarding this and continue to monitor the situation closely.

We have requested a meeting with the director of infrastructure and submitted an extensive list of questions. We were due to meet with her on Friday May 13.

She has accordingly asked for more time to prepare, based on our questions.

We would like to ensure that this meeting happens in this next week and look forward to reporting back on this in due course.

We have unfortunately received more reports from members of our community who have been threatened and intimidated by beggars and “car guards” in the CBD of our town.

This was particularly concerning this past week, with a few reports of very dangerous individuals threatening women with assault and one even carrying a knife.

We please encourage our residents, ratepayers and visitors to refrain from tipping car guards and beggars around our town and rather supporting local charities which manage distributions correctly.

There is an increasing drug problem with many of these people, which makes them increasingly aggressive and dangerous.

We are in discussions with some local businesses and organisations to try create a social initiative to support people who have fallen on hard times but please, any tips given simply encourages the problem.

In happier news, we are excited to announce the completion of the first phase of our first community project of the year.

We attended to a beautification of the area around the Civic Centre and Port Alfred Public Library.

The library is here for us all to enjoy and we need to encourage our youth and the community to use this amazing resource more.

Parra does not support attending to service delivery issues which Ndlambe LM should be taking care of, but regarding a bit of beautification (the “nice haves”), we believe we can get on board with this.

Please have a look when you drive past. This is thanks to the amazing local businesses and people who supported our initiative and also to our members who have joined Parra for the year.

Your R300 (or R250) goes a long way and it is because of you that we can make these sorts of projects a reality.

Membership runs from January to December each year, so if you haven’t signed up in 2022, please consider getting on board.

We are working hard for this community and voluntarily donate many hours of our private time to ensure the interests of our ratepayers’ and residents’ are raised with Ndlambe LM.

We need funding, support, skills and involvement from the diverse communities which fall within our geographical area.

If you live, own, work or rent in Port Alfred, Nemato, Station Hill or Thorn Hill, please get involved.

Membership forms can be found at www.parra.org.za. Join us and be part of working to build a better Port Alfred together.