Sibongiseni Bhengu is under pressure. It is tough being a municipal councillor constantly harassed to speed up service delivery and development, but when your ward is home to the president of the country, that pressure is tenfold.
Bhengu’s constituency is Ward 14 in Nkandla, the home town of SA’s number one citizen.
His home in KwaNxamalala, nestled below the rolling hills of Mabengela and overlooking the Nkandla forest, is a stone’s throw away from the Zuma homestead.
Bhengu’s first problem is that the residents assume he has a direct line to the president.
“That I am a councillor to the president comes with a lot of pressure,” he says. “People have a perception that the president will just wake up in the morning and say: ‘I have decided to develop this area.’
“They want to know what is it that I have discussed with the president about development, and they expect the president to wave a magic wand and develop the ward.
“These people seem to forget that Zuma is not the president of Ward 14 and Nkandla alone, but of SA.”
The second, and bigger problem for Bhengu is dealing with people outside his ward who feel that his area is benefiting from major infrastructure developments because it is home to Zuma.
With Nkandla having mushroomed from a rural, undeveloped area a few years ago into one with several community projects and infrastructure, it is not hard to see where such perceptions come from.
Several community projects have been developed and are being consolidated around Nkandla’s Lindela Thusong Multipurpose Centre, which houses a library, post office, municipal office, Home Affairs offices, the Jacob Zuma Education Trust office and an Ithala ATM.
“It helps a lot to bring services closer to people, and the president had a hand in it coming here,” says Bhengu. The centre was built while Zuma was the deputy president.
Across from the centre is the Mamba One Stop Development Centre, built at a cost of R12.8 million by former KwaZulu-Natal Social Development MEC Meshack Radebe.
This centre, which is not used to full capacity, is meant to house a clinic and Home Affairs and Labour offices. There are social workers, an HIV/Aids NGO and community projects operating from it.
Another facility – Tulwane One Stop Development Centre – offering similar services, was built nearby by Radebe.
There were lavish functions to open both centres, attended by Zuma in the build-up to the 2009 elections. At the time, this triggered an angry reaction from the DA, which charged that public funds were being used to campaign for the ANC.
Radebe responded by saying the residents of Nkandla would not be punished by being excluded from service delivery just because Zuma happened to come from the town.
During a visit to the area, there was a hive of developmental activity. At one project, finishing touches were being put to the P55 from Eshowe to Nkandla, and the P15/2, which runs through Zuma’s home town to Kranskop and Pietermaritzburg.
This R500m road network, covering 250km, is part of a project known as the Tale of Four Cities because it links Ulundi, Empangeni/Richards Bay, Durban and Pietermaritzburg.
Part of the road from Kranskop is tarred, providing easy access for Zuma should he decide to travel straight to Nkandla from Pietermaritzburg. Bhengu says the development and tarring of the roads will shorten the journey between Nkandla and Durban. “It will also attract business opportunities into the area and help create jobs,” he says.
Kwanele Ncalane, a spokesman for the KZN Transport Department, rejects suggestions that the construction of the road has anything to do with the fact that the home of the president is on the same route.
In the past three years, thousands of homes in Nkandla have received electricity connections at a cost of R44m. Replying to a parliamentary question in March last year, Energy Minister Dipuo Peters said there would be 3 000 electricity connections in six villages in the Nkandla area.
Peters said Zuma’s village of KwaNxamalala was among those that would benefit from electrification projects budgeted for 2011/12.
She said the government would aim to make 648 connections in four other Nkandla villages. The programme would cost R12m.
A further R20m worth of connections were expected in the area during the 2012/13 financial year, but this figure would decrease to R10m in the 2013/14 financial year.
At another construction site, a huge upgrading of the water reservoir and treatment plant – built by Uthungulu district municipality for R45m – is under way.
The activity in Nkandla has caught the attention of the private sector, with the National African Federated Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Nafcoc) announcing plans last year to build a R7m condom factory in the rural town.
Adding that this had nothing to do with Zuma’s links to the town, Nafcoc said the factory would create about 300 jobs and that 20 percent of its ownership would eventually go to the local community.
The main development in the area, however, is the consolidation of the president’s homestead, which is said to have undergone a R64m upgrade. This expansion, building on the African theme of his home, boasts six double-storey thatched rondavels for his wives.
Security has been beefed up, with the erection of a steel wall around the expanding homestead. The renovation, encroaching on the road that passes the property, has redefined the landscape of the village.
Last year, it was reported that the homestead would include a clinic, a helipad and accommodation for medical staff.
Just behind the Zuma homestead is a cluster of more than 10 stand-alone thatched houses. Still unoccupied, these are believed to be guest houses for visitors and VIPs.
Behind the guest houses is a sports ground under construction.
Beyond this stands the huge new residence of Zuma’s nephew, Khulubuse, which includes two stand-alone double-storey flats and two stand-alone houses.
Requests by Independent Newspapers to gain access were turned down because they were declared national key points. For the locals, this development boom was in no doubt thanks to Zuma and his commitment to rural development.
Earlier this year, the Jacob Zuma Foundation handed over five three-bedroomed houses to needy families around Lindela, Nkandla.
Bhengu says these were the first of several to be built by the foundation for the needy in the province.
He said Zuma used his influence to get Nelson Mandela to have Mnyakanyaka High School, next to his home, renovated by Goldfields. The school now boasts a computer laboratory.
Lennox Mabaso, a spokesman for the Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs, says Nkandla is one of many towns that are being given a facelift as part of the department’s small towns rehabilitation programme.
“The idea is make it attractive to investors and to cap the migration of people to urban areas.” - The Mercury