Elections 2026: Will Ikageng residents continue to wait for better infrastructure?

Residents of Ikageng in North West want better roads, fewer potholes and road signs.

With the local government elections in South Africa scheduled to take place today, 4 November, residents told threestreamsmedia (3SM) the collapsing infrastructure reminded them that those who had been in power for the last few years were all talk and no action. Ikageng is part of the JB Marks municipality.

Ikageng resident Lebogang Moumakwa said: “They just close the potholes with sand so that they are not visible. So, you would think the potholes are fixed but when you drive with your car and you hit a pothole your car gets damaged”.

He also mentioned that broken streetlights created risks for the safety of citizens, especially for pedestrians who walked to work and back in the dark when it was difficult to see, and this increased the risk of citizens getting robbed.

Another Ikageng resident Lebohang Mokone said: “The government is slow to respond to infrastructure faults”.

According to her the signs on the road were not clearly painted and stop signs were absent. This caused accidents and conflict on the road because people assumed that they could yield and pass when they were not supposed to do that.

Nomathemba Morwadi, a community and political commentator in Ikageng who used her TikTok account to speak about issues that affected the community, told 3SM that a lack of voting, especially among youth citizens, was a major issue for the elections, and that this was because citizens were frustrated and felt trapped by the people in leadership  positions.

She said once the government could stick to its promises, then citizens, and mainly the youth would realise that they needed to vote, because voting gave them a chance for their needs to be met.

“The youth has lost respect for politicians, and this is because of empty promises. Politicians will say anything to get what they want. The only thing that can get the youth to vote, is politicians sticking to their promises,” said Morwadi. By Ayavuya Cele and Luca Karsten