Residents still stuck with broken lifts

“It is now February 2020, and there is still no sign of the lifts.”

February 25, 2020

Brakpan Herald 2 minutes read

The City of Ekurhuleni has lost sight of the welfare of the elderly.

This is the opinion of DA councillor for Ward 97 in Brakpan Brandon Pretorius.

“The lifts at the council-owned Tweedy Park flats, as well as Roxana Mansions, have either not been working or have been problematic for some time, and the situation is deteriorating daily,” he said.

“The lack of support and service delivery from the metro has been alarming during this time of desperation and despair.

“A metro that treats its residents like this obviously does not hold them in very high regard.”

Pretorius strongly condemned the prolonging of the installation of the lifts at Tweedy Park and Roxana Mansions.

“We have fought long and hard for these lifts, and we will not let any maladministration be the cause of any further delay,” he said.

READ: A boost for service delivery

In 2017, the municipality announced the commencement of the lifts project and that it would be completed by the end of October 2018.

“It is now February 2020, and there is still no sign of the lifts,” said Pretorius.

“Unsurprisingly, the metro has, yet again, failed its residents by failing to deliver on their promises.

“I do not blame residents of the buildings who have said they feel the metro does not care properly for its elderly citizens.”

Pretorius explained the municipality at first stated it had appointed two different contractors to complete the lift projects.

“However, after following up with them regarding the delay we got two different responses,” he said.

“The first was that the lifts have not yet arrived in South Africa.

“The second is that additional skilled workers are needed to design different variations of the lifts, which will only be determined during implementation stage.”

The latest response received read as follows: “Please pardon us on the delay of lift installations. We discovered well after appointment that there would be additional works needed due to different designs of lifts. It should be noted that there was absolutely no way for us to determine the variations until implementation stage. We are currently collating the variations with the contractors and consultants”.

Pretorius told the Herald the municipality is constantly delaying projects due to poor planning and awarding of tenders to inefficient and incompetent contractors.