By Umamah Bakharia

Lenasia’s Councillor, Imraan Moosa, is encouraging residents of Lenaisa to send in their proposals to make all Lenasia extensions 1-13 fall under one ward.

Speaking to Radio Islam, Moosa says having all the extensions under one ward would make it easier for everyone.

“It makes it difficult to serve the community in terms of services,” says Moosa.

The councillor gives an example of Rose Avenue which has 3 different wards.

“It doesn’t make sense in terms of location, service delivery [and] elections itself and this needs to be motivated through the demarcation board or to the IEC.”

The researcher of the city council has been assisting in the demarcation process to ensure that Lenasia can become one ward.

However, according to an email received by the Municipal Demarcation Board (MDB), the ward deal limitation process was concluded in 2020. The MDB has also added that the wards that were used during the 2021 IEC local election process will only be reviewed in 2024.

“We need to have some process by the residence [to] put pressure by the residence and before the national and provincial elections in 2024, the MDB will have to recalculate the number of voters which will be required to make [the] ward in the city of Johannesburg based on the numbers that will be registered at the time [in] 2024,” says Moosa.

Currently, there are 3 wards in Lenasia.

Responding to a question on Lenasia extension demarcation being in favour of the ANC, Moosa says, “It is obvious that the ruling party could have a hand in it and influence in it but ultimately in terms of the election process itself it’s quite a free and fair process.”

Meanwhile, Lenasia’s Councillor says that the taxi rank project will be completed shortly.

Addressing a question on Lenasia’s road work, Moosa says he has addressed the council and speaker on the issues of potholes and he is still awaiting a response.

However, he says: “it is quite clear the process of the way our council is operating at the moment seems to be influenced by certain political parties.”

Councillor Moosa is appealing to opposition parties in the area to put aside the political differences and put the community as a first priority.