With droves of tourists expected in the province as the festive season gets under way, the province’s largest water services provider, Amatola Water Board, says load-shedding is making it impossible to meet demand and has called for wide-reaching water-shedding measures to be put in place. The water board supplies Buffalo City Metro and the nearby Great Kei municipality.
The provincial health department has run up against a new challenge in providing decent services to Eastern Cape citizens: the prevalence of “ghost workers” in its system.
The Border-Kei Chamber of Business has raised concerns about the leasing of a BCM sports stadium to Chippa Holdings, pleading with the municipality to review its decision, which it said was crippling sports activities in the metro. The chamber, in a recent letter to mayor Xola Pakati, claimed the leasing of East London’s Jan Smuts Athletics Stadium to Chippa United FC boss Siviwe “Chippa” Mpengesi for the next 20 years, has literally “killed athletics in our city”.
The official Nahoon residence of Anele Ntsangani, mayor of the troubled Amathole district municipality, has been burgled, but the only items to have been stolen appear to be old council documents.
The three Selborne College matric pupils accused of a gruesome assault on seven of their schoolmates made their first appearance in the East London magistrate’s court on Thursday. The trio, Alizwa Matwa, Liyema Badli and Liyabona Masebe, all 18 years old, appeared nervous when they appeared before magistrate Rochel Sam.