images/Football-Friday.jpgNelspruit – Last week Friday saw the launch of the Football Friday by the Mbombela Municipality and the Mpumalanga government in preparation for the upcoming 2010 Soccer World Cup to be staged in the country. According to the Mbombela Mayor Lassy Chiwayo, Football Friday is meant to revive the football spirit in the province and other provinces.

“Since the coming 2010 Soccer World Cup is for all Africans, we therefore urged our neighbouring countries such as Swaziland and Mozambique to also be part of this historical event,” he said. “This World Cup must benefit all Africans not just us here in the South, so they must start now and prepare themselves as well. They must also heed the Football Friday’s call and do what we all do,” went Chiwayo.

The launching of the Football Friday meant that every Friday everyone is urged to wear colourful sports gears for the support of their favourate teams. “All Africans must remember to wear their teams’ jerseys or paint their faces in support of the 2010 World Cup,” Chiwayo explained.

The 2010 Soccer World Cup Mascot Zakumi made his first appearance to the host city, Mbombela on Friday where he entertained children. Mbombela is one of the host cities to host some games during the 2010 Soccer World Cup and its Mayor confirmed that the host city is ready for the big showcase.

Tonga- The executive mayor of Nkomazi Municipality, Cllr Johan Mavuso, came down to meet the community of Tonga in what many perceive as a clever move last Saturday. This happened after the community had organized a march to the local councillor’s house to voice their dissatisfaction with the incumbent’s alleged indifference to their plight. The executive mayor had a member of the mayoral committee in tow; Cllr Lizzy Mkhatshwa. Though the meeting was predictably tense with no quarter neither asked nor given, most of all those who spoke to Nkomazi Voice agree that it was a watershed. The chairman of the meeting who is, in fact, the deputy chairperson of the local branch of the ANC, Nhlanhla Mdakane, had to navigate murky waters as speaker after speaker called for the head of the councillor, Freddy Ngomane, to be presented on a platter. All the while Ngomane sat forlornly leaving big brother, Mayor Mavuso, to jump to his aid. Speaking in that meeting Mavuso drew the attention of the vociferous crowd to the fact that councillors are deployees of political parties and that his office, though sympathetic to the plight of residents, is responsible for neither hiring nor firing them. He also assured them that, as part of ward 2, Tonga will share in the allocated 1000 household unit electricity connections. This comes as welcome relief for many who have had to depend on illegal connections. Just the other day police were called in to intervene as residents came up against each other, fighting over illegal connections which disrupt supply to those who’ve been legally connected. There was already a hive of activity outside of the venue as municipality trucks and graders attended to battered streets. This, clearly, may open the municipality to numerous community revolts as the impression is created that administrations react promptly when situations degenerate into crises. Mdakane was particularly excited about the outcome of the meeting. He said: “We are not necessarily worried about the viciousness of some of the comments. We are, in fact, encouraged that our people were able to engage their leadership on issues that are there everyone to see. What came out of that meeting is a plan of action that will see a series of engagements that will result in progress. The issue of a secondary school was raised very sharply and no selfrespecting leader will seek to dismiss that as hogwash.” Speaking on behalf of the municipality, Cyril Repinga echoed Mdakane’s views. “Our people did well under the circumstances and we commend them for not following the example of others who ended up looting shops and vandalising property. Without presuming that Cllr Freddy Ngomane is guilty of all the allegations made against him, we still wish to reiterate what we said last time about all councillors attending to their constituencies studiously. We are also not going to wait until another community also confronts us. We already have a programme that takes into cognizance the needs of all the communities within our municipality and this, we hope, is constantly communicated. I refer here to issues of service delivery like water and electricity supply, which are mostly