WeeklySA_AdminRELIEF:Local building contractor steps in after plea for help
By Frank Maponya
A Limpopo mayor has made a timely intervention to get a destitute family a decent house. Greater Tzaneen mayor Maripe Mangena helped bring a smile to Letsoalo family of six, consisting of the mother, her three children and two grandchildren, who had been living in squalor after their mud houses had collapsed following heavy rains earlier this year.
This was the third time that councillor Maripe Mangena, mayor of the Greater Tzaneen Municipality, has intervened to find shelter for destitute families in recent weeks.
When Mampe heard about the family’s plight in Bokgaga village’s Dipatjeng Section near Lenyenye, Mangena contacted Meopeng Trading, a local construction company, which has promised to complete the house in eight weeks. The family lost three mud houses during January’s heavy rainfall. A tent in which they were temporarily housed which was also damaged by a storm.
Mom Rahab Letsoalo said she had been living in fear of the worst since the storm damaged their huts early this year.
“For the past eight months since the mud houses had collapsed, I had not been able to catch a sleep because I had a responsibility to protect my children and grandchildren. But I’m now grateful that God has answered our prayers and soon we will be living in a decent house,” she said.
Letsoalo, whose husband died several years ago, survives on a meagre R700 a month which from her job at Kwanda, a local labour intensive project for local people in the area. None of her grandchildren received government’s social grants.
Mangena has promised to engage officials of the department of social development to ensure that the family received food parcels, over and above securing social grants for the grandchildren.
During a sod-turning ceremony on Wednesday, Mangena committed to restoring the dignity of the family, adding he would do everything in his power to ensure that those in desperate need got the required help.
“As Mme Letsoalo has explained, they are six in number and how they have been living in the house is just abhorable. And we can’t even explain it,” said the mayor. “We are excited that today henceforth we are going to put something that will restore the dignity of the family,” he said.
The mayor further called on the business community to come forward and assist the needy. “I would like to make a clarion call to many more other businesspeople who have got muscles to make a contribution to the lives of our people,” he continued. Mangena handed over a new house to a needy family in Mopye and also conducted a sod-turning ceremony for the construction of another new house in Fobeni village recently.
