Umm Muhammed Umar

In focusing on various communities in and around Lenasia, putting the spotlight on what are the issues they facing and also what are some of the gains and some of the projects that the community is involved in. Shabir Dhabelia is the current Ward Councillor of Azaadville and Mogale City. About half of the neighbouring area called Rietvallei, also falls under his watch. Rietvallei is a semi-rural area with a lot of RDP homes and a lot of informal settlements within each housing structure. Dhabelia said the population is unaccounted for, in many cases, because there are informal structures within the former RDP structure homes.

Dhabelia says his five-year term is coming to an end. He served from 2016, and his term would have ended now in 2021 depending on when the elections are going to be. They are currently scheduled for October 27, if things go according to the COVID regulations, and constraints which are in the country at the moment, it may be postponed to February, 2022, but this has not as yet been confirmed. He said, “I was hoping, by now, we would have been able to train and inspire, quite a few youngsters to get involved because, this essentially, is the main focus, was always the main focus – to ensure that there is always continuity. He said he was past retirement age and was hoping that youngsters would be able to take over, and so had been grooming the younger generation to take the reins. Councillor Dhabelia says the younger generation still, however, feel intimidated. He said, “it seems to be a very daunting task, but it is a very essential role in responsibility that all counsellors need to play.” He added that all community members needed to ensure that there is some sort of representation at municipality level. Councillor Dhabelia further said, “in many cases we are highly critical of governance and we are highly critical of municipality function, but at the same time, if our participation is lacking, it means we are basically spectators, trying to play the game from the outside.” This is one of the core issues which many communities face – nobody wants to get involved. Dhabelia lamented that he was sandwiched in, between the Council and officials, and the community, but said it was a role which every community, in spite of the challenges, had to take on. He said, “participation is one of the ways of ensuring the governance in our spaces, running to a level of satisfaction which we expect.”

Some of the challenges that communities currently face are crime, and the standard of service delivery. According to Dhabelia, crime currently is in a fairly low position in Azaadville. The area’s crime fighters have partnerships with a lot of networking, and the youth are currently available. Patrollers are out on a regular basis. He said, “We’ve got private security companies, we’ve got CPS, and the sector police. Communities need to work together, and, Alhamdulillah, Azaadville is one of those few places where the networking in the relationship from grassroots right up to the station commander is of the level where we would get the necessary response.”  He said that for the past four to five years, there had been no major issues. While petty crime does exist, for instance, recyclers on the pretext of rummaging through a dustbin, may steal a tap or steal the dustbin or municipal drain covers, the community is now very vigilant, and the collective response has paid off.

Regarding the recent looting spree in Kwazulu Natal and some areas of Gauteng, Dhabelia said the Azaadville community had always pre-empted trouble and was proactive rather than reactive. He said that when a threatening voice note went viral on social media, mentioning Azaadville as one of the places to be targeted, the community responded brilliantly, by networking with the nearby informal settlements with police informants, and with the sector police. He said, “So at any point in time, if there was an incident, we could almost rate the situation from the outside, and planned ourselves accordingly, and called the necessary law enforcement agencies to assist and to back us up”. He advised that everyone in all communities, get involved in some sort of structure at community level. The time for sitting on the side and being an armchair critic has passed. The most pertinent message from Councillor Dhabelia was that it’s now time for us to get involved in our communities.