52 Stuart Street; HARRISMITH; 9880; Phone numbers: 087 997 0683 / 087 997 0682; Email Address: admin@hitassociation.org.za
Registration Number: 2019/301720/08
Who are we ?
HIT Residents Association is a registered non-profitable and non-political organization which acts as a formal voice or pressure group to the community within the Greater Harrismith to prevent further deterioration of our town due to a collapsed municipality.
"HIT" stands for the three main areas within the Greater Harrismith:
- Harrismith;
- Intabazwe, and
- Tshiame.
These three areas together is also well known as the Greater Harrismith.
Maluti-A-Phofung Municipality is totally bankrupt and cannot provide decent services to us as residents, farmers and business owners within the Greater Harrismith. The municipality is also not repaying it’s debt to its suppliers and as a result, we as the community are suffering and experiencing the following challenges daily:
- Potholes in the roads that can no longer be patched, but needs proper repairs in most areas.
- No street lights
- In accurate accounts or no accounts at all which makes it impossible to pay for service delivery
- A filthy town - Parks, cemeteries, pavements, etc., are no longer maintained or cleaned
- Damaged / stolen electrical cables that cannot be replaced or repaired resulting in us being without electricity for days, despite most businesses and homes having pre-paid meters.
- No public toilets.
- No services in refuse removal.
- Sewerage leaks polluting our town, suburbs, farms and river.
- Shortage of water to our homes and businesses due no maintenance, no repairs to equipment and leaks on the pipelines, which leaves us without water for days if not months or years!
- Lack in general repairs, maintenance and upgrades to infrastructure.
- Higher risk to all sorts of illnesses and diseases, including Covid-19 due to no sanitation
- Etc..
Over the years of no service delivery, businesses, community volunteers and several organizations have tried to help in projects consisting out of:
Sadly, these projects and activities have proven to be unsustainable long term solutions and only act as "patch solutions" that lasts for for a very short time. Projects such as these are also often very time consuming and costly and the worse service delivery gets, the less these volunteers are able to assist around town. Although we continue to motivate these projects,
- Cleaning projects such as refuse removal and cleaning our town
- Patching of potholes
- Repairing minor water / sewerage leaks
- Unblocking storm drains and cleaning out gutters
- Acting against those littering and dumping due MAP's lack in service delivery
- etc..
Sadly, these projects and activities have proven to be unsustainable long term solutions and only act as "patch solutions" that lasts for for a very short time. Projects such as these are also often very time consuming and costly and the worse service delivery gets, the less these volunteers are able to assist around town. Although we continue to motivate these projects,
FACT IS: THE ONLY WAY FORWARD IS ONGOING EXCELLENCE IN MUNICIPAL SERVICE DELIVERY ON A DAILY BASIS!
While municipal services are actually a very straight forward and easy task to manage, high ranking self serving officials and politicians have chosen to turn simple service delivery in to a complicated mess. We as a community can no longer allow politicians and incompetent officials to manage our municipality by themselves without supervision and legal pressure to ensure that we are getting the services we are expected to pay for.
Over the years we have only ever seen that politicians, political parties and incompetent high ranking officials make it their mission to look out for their own benefits and are more focused on:
- Votes,
- Their personal statuses within community as influential officials for personal gain
- Their own annual salary increases and bonuses,
- Expensive functions, luxury cars and luxury homes
- Ongoing meetings that result in to more endless meetings that lead to nowhere in terms of services rendered to the community
- Any other activities during work hours that is not at all related to municipal services or the well being of the local community
- Defending a bankrupt municipality and fighting for an influx of money from the government "to save the sunken municipality" of which the Greater Harrismith does not see a cent or any positive results.
- Etc..
These activities seem to be extremely time consuming, extremely stressful and very complicated for the politicians and the higher ranking officials. After a long hard day serving themselves and their own agendas, there is no space left for the well being of the community or any actual municipal service delivery. But these same officials and politicians earn fat pay cheques, monthly.
What is the long term solution?
A residents association that is created by the community for the community with no other agendas or political interest which is dedicated to acting on behalf of the community in ensuring prompt and efficient service delivery to everyone who lives within Harrismith, Intabazwe and Tshiame.
We, as members of this community, who manage our own businesses, our households and who work for a living within this community, know our needs far better than any politician, government official or provincial official. We also know our community better than any outsider ever will. Our voices as a community have to be heard and made loud and clear and it is high time our own community get involved with the service delivery within our town. In order to achieve this we need an association which can act as our collective voice and acting body which will take legal steps on behalf of every resident and business in order to obtain excellence in municipal service delivery.
Why you should join HIT?
Together as a community and as one collective voice, we can all achieve the following:
- We will no longer have to fight MAP legal fees by ourselves as individuals, as a collective we can do it together.
- We and our families will live in a clean and safe town and suburbs.
- Property owners will regain their property values due to improved service delivery.
- Young professionals, entrepreneurs and young workers will want to relocate to our town, which will provide more opportunity for growth in this town which is a great advantage to any existing business.
- Investors will want to invest in our beautiful town again and this will result in to more jobs being created.
- We will all be able to determine the standard of our lifestyles again.
- We will be able to solve our problems in a friendly, efficient and professionally managed office.
- We will recover our dignity and live like civilized people again.
- We will live in a cleaner and healthier environment as we will have proper sanitation.
- As residents become proud to live in the Greater Harrismith again, the more we will enjoy our town again.
For all the above reasons, it is very important that every household resident, business owner, property owner and farmer gets involved and join us in our mission in restoring Harrismith, Intabazwe and Tshiame and maintaining our town for years to come so that our town can recover, grow and flourish financially in exactly the way it used to and in the way every single resident deserves. We will never ever be able to leave any municipality to manage our town unsupervised ever again.
We need all the support we can get in order to achieve our goals for the greater good of the community of the Greater Harrismith (Harrismith, Intabazwe and Tsiame). Without your support, we may achieve our goals, but it will take much longer. Each resident will have to decide how much time they have left, but the sooner everyone joins the cause, the sooner we can move forward.
Unfortunately, NPO's also pay for service delivery, labour, court cases, lawyers, office rent, staff, etc.. We can only rely on a small hand of volunteers who are able to give their time freely, and we therefore we rely on member fees to cover our costs to serve and act on behalf of the community. The more members we have, the more resources we will have, the more effective we can become and the faster we can have a positive impact which will result in us as a community achieving our goals in ensuring excellence in service delivery from our municipality within the Greater Harrismith.
We need all the support we can get in order to achieve our goals for the greater good of the community of the Greater Harrismith (Harrismith, Intabazwe and Tsiame). Without your support, we may achieve our goals, but it will take much longer. Each resident will have to decide how much time they have left, but the sooner everyone joins the cause, the sooner we can move forward.
Unfortunately, NPO's also pay for service delivery, labour, court cases, lawyers, office rent, staff, etc.. We can only rely on a small hand of volunteers who are able to give their time freely, and we therefore we rely on member fees to cover our costs to serve and act on behalf of the community. The more members we have, the more resources we will have, the more effective we can become and the faster we can have a positive impact which will result in us as a community achieving our goals in ensuring excellence in service delivery from our municipality within the Greater Harrismith.
Be the change you want to see. Join us today.
