Alexandra residents in Ward 75 came together for a public meeting at the Multipurpose Centre in Alexandra on June 30. The gathering, attended by representatives of municipal entities, including Johannesburg Water (JW), Johannesburg Roads Agency (JRA), City Power, Pikitup, and the Johannesburg Metro Police Department, offered residents a chance to raise their service delivery concerns with officials.

Read more: Ward 75 is hotbed of GBVF in Alex
Councillor Sannie Mavhona expressed her concern about the shortcomings of some entities when it comes to delivering services to Ward 75 residents, noting that when services are not delivered, residents look to her for answers.
She pointed to urgent challenges in her ward, such as deteriorating roads, especially 6th Avenue, which is riddled with potholes and storm water drains that fail when it rains. Although she urged some entities to ‘pull up their socks’, she did not draw back from also holding residents of Ward 75 accountable for some of the challenges they are grappling with.
This was backed by Tshilidzi Dombo, JW’s depot manager. He recalled an incident in which they were supposed to attend to an issue in Alexandra, but found that residents had built on top of their infrastructure. “Our plan indicates that our infrastructure is there, but there is a double-story house built there. We are obviously not going to demolish it, but that forces us to find another way to fix the problem, and that causes delays.”
Following her brief inspection of the roads in Ward 75 before the meeting, JRA Region E depot manager Khumo Diphoko confirmed that she is aware of the challenges raised by Mavhona. She also stressed that some of those challenges can partly be attributed to public behaviour. “When people throw things into the storm water [drainage], it becomes blocked… Every day, I have teams working here, but after working, community members block the storm water [drains],” she shared, appealing to residents to take a stand when witnessing harmful actions by others.
The meeting highlighted the importance of collaboration between residents, municipal entities, and the councillor in ensuring that Ward 75 is provided with services.

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