News24 | ON THE ROAD | Patched roads, broken promises: Ackerville’s R44m imbizo reckoning

• The Mpumalanga government spent R14.9 million on President Cyril Ramaphosa’s one-day imbizo in Ackerville in March 2024.
• Nearly three years later, the water is still undrinkable and many title deeds have not been delivered.
• Pensioner Fannie Magale has not registered for the 4 November elections and says he will not register again until someone follows up on the promises made.
• For more political news, follow News24’s Politics.

For one day in March 2024, Ackerville in the Emalahleni Local Municipality looked like a community the government had started listening to at last.

Verges were cut, potholes were patched and roads were marked ahead of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s presidential imbizo, where residents confronted him and his Cabinet ministers over water, electricity, unemployment, housing and crumbling road infrastructure.

Nearly three years later, residents say the promises made that day have largely remained just that – promises.

Fannie Magale, a Thushanang resident in Witbank and a pensioner, was among the thousands who filled Sy Mthimunye Stadium in Ackerville on 7 March 2024 when Ramaphosa convened a meeting with municipalities under the Nkangala District Municipality.

They included the local municipalities of Emalahleni, Steve Tshwete, Emakhazeni, Thembisile Hani and Dr JS Moroka.

READ | ON THE ROAD: Paying twice for water: Inside Phola’s service delivery crisis

Magale dismissed the imbizo as a waste of time, saying promises to address residents’ grievances had yielded nothing nearly three years on.

He said residents were invited to raise their concerns directly with Ramaphosa but added that the problems they had highlighted, including water, roads, electricity, unemployment and illegal dumping, had worsened.

“This imbizo did nothing for the community and yielded no result. I believe they also knew that this was useless, but they did it anyway to act as if they cared about our concerns and the issues we are facing,” he said.

Ramaphosa had come for the 12th instalment of his District Development Model (DDM) presidential imbizo, a platform his government created to put the three spheres of the state in one room with the people they serve.

The DDM, which was first announced in Ramaphosa’s 2019 budget speech and later institutionalised through Cabinet regulations, is meant to align national, provincial and local government around “One Plan” for each of the country’s 44 districts and eight metros, breaking down silos and tackling service delivery backlogs in a coordinated way.

That day in Nkangala, the theme was “Leave No One Behind”.

News24 spent a day in Ackerville, Mpumalanga, where two years ago, President Cyril Ramaphosa hosted a one-day presidential imbizo and made promises to residents to improve service delivery issues in their communities.

Yolanda Mdzeke/News24

Residents grabbed the opportunity to tell Ramaphosa and his Cabinet ministers, then-water and sanitation minister Senzo Mchunu among them, exactly what was wrong. They spoke of water shortages, dirty taps, dilapidated roads, electricity, housing backlogs, youth unemployment and the plight of people who were still waiting for title deeds.

Ramaphosa called his ministers to respond in real time.

He also handed title deeds to labour tenants in the Nkangala district.

Ramaphosa told the crowd:

The issues raised are noted and have been accelerated for delivery.

In August 2024, the Sunday Times reported that Ramaphosa’s izimbizo had come at a huge cost to the taxpayer – R44 million for four events in just eight months.

The cost was disclosed to Parliament by Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) Minister Velenkosini Hlabisa in a written reply to questions from DA MP Frederik Badenhorst.

He told Parliament that between October 2023 and May 2024, during the height of the election campaign season ahead of the watershed 29 May polls, the government spent R44.9 million for the president to listen to service delivery complaints at one-day gatherings.

According to the reply, the provincial government was the biggest spender on the one-day imbizo, splurging R14.9 million in Emalahleni.

Nearly three years later, on the eve of the 2026 local government elections, News24 returned to Ackerville.

READ | ON THE ROAD: Beaufort West – The dam is full, but the taps are dry

The potholes were being patched again. The road markings were being painted again. And the residents who had been promised clean water, title deeds and jobs were still waiting.

Water remains one of the community’s biggest problems, and it is not getting better. Supply is often cut for weeks, and when it is restored, residents say they cannot use the water because it is not clean.

The crisis is not unique to Ackerville.

Throughout the Nkangala district, communities depend on unreliable piped water due to ageing infrastructure, leaks, theft and vandalism at boreholes, and demand that far exceeds supply.

Frustrated resident Fannie Magale will not vote due to his unhappiness with his municipality.

Yolanda Mdzeke/News24

For Magale, the gap between promise and reality is measured in what comes out of his tap.

“It would be out for weeks, and when it finally returns, it is at a point where you can’t even drink it, wash clothes or cook with it. It has a red colour, and there would also be black things inside it,” he said.

Magale said residents had also raised concerns about deteriorating roads, illegal dumping at the cemetery, electricity charges and high unemployment among young people living near mines and industries.

He accused the authorities of patching up roads only when prominent politicians visited the area.

He said:

Whenever there is a president or a big politician coming to our area, they just do those small touch-ups, patching the road where that person will be travelling. They don’t care about us.

He said he now spends part of his pension buying water because he does not want his grandchildren drinking from the taps.

Magale called for independent monitors to track whether municipalities follow through on promises made to communities.

“We find out that money is being given to ensure that service delivery is done, but there’s nothing,” he said.

The failure to address these problems has left Magale questioning whether he will ever vote again.

“I have been voting since 1994, and I can tell you for sure that I can never encourage a person to go and vote,” he said.

“I haven’t even registered for these elections. I don’t want to, and I’m not going to vote. Until there are people who go and do follow-ups about issues and promises that have been made to communities, there won’t be any change, and my vote will be meaningless.”

He said the community’s problems had only worsened, from roads and water infrastructure to schools, crime, electricity and unemployment.

Another resident agreed that nothing had changed in the community, despite a string of promises from local authorities.

READ | ON THE ROAD: Ngove has taps, Nkomo buys water: A tale of two villages 5km apart

The man, who asked not to be named, said councillors came to residents with budgets and project plans but never returned to check whether anything had actually been delivered.

“What they do is this dipstick thing where they come to test the community, but they never do any follow-up. The councillor has a responsibility to engage people on the ground, take their issues to the municipality to be directed to the ministers and the president, but they don’t do that,” he said.

He added that instead of making empty promises, authorities needed to find a way to streamline their processes and ensure that they followed up.

However, he said, they experienced the total opposite. No one from the municipality, the ministry or the president’s office ever came back to account for what was done after budgets were announced.

He said:

I don’t know whether everything is just talk directed at the municipality or what, but we see no change, yet we were promised a lot of things on that day.

Another resident said service delivery in the area had deteriorated so badly over the past 32 years that, in his view, life was better during apartheid.

The resident, who also asked not to be named, said communities had endured years of broken promises, deteriorating infrastructure and poor services despite repeatedly raising their concerns with the government.

“We need change now. We have been trusting the same political party for the past 32 years to deliver services to us, but year by year, everything is getting worse,” he said.

He said residents raised their concerns with Ramaphosa during his visit to the area, including the poor condition of roads. He claimed roads were repaired but they deteriorated again, and that some potholes were ignored unless senior government officials were expected to visit:

Roads are being fixed, but two or three years later, we are back to square one. They only care when there is a minister or the president coming.

Unemployment was another major concern, particularly as mines in the area continued to retrench workers.

The man said he had had enough and would vote for change.

“If they don’t do anything now, the situation is going to get worse, and we will continue to be in the same state,” he said.

Pensioner Ephraim Nchabeleng briefly attended the imbizo in 2024. He believes the government "[doesn't] keep their promises" they make to people.

Yolanda Mdzeke/News24

Sixty-nine-year-old Ephraim Nchabeleng was among the residents who filled Sy Mthimunye Stadium that day in March 2024.

“Unfortunately, because I run a tuckshop, I did not stay long there. I just went there to see the president and salute him, that was it.

“But what I heard is that there were some promises, but when I look at those promises, they were not fulfilled, so I don’t know what is happening with our government. I like it so much because they make good promises, but the problem is that they don’t keep their promises.”

Asked whether the imbizo was a waste of money, Nchabeleng said:

Yah, because what worried me is that I have a house in Klarinet. The president promised we would get our title deeds, but we didn’t. Few people have received the title deeds, so we don’t know what to do or say till now. We are still waiting for him to come and tell us when we are going to get our title deeds; we don’t know when.

Presidency spokesperson Vincent Magwenya referred News24 to the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, which is responsible for following up on the government’s commitments.

National Cogta department spokesperson Pearl Maseko-Binqose did not respond to News24’s query.