Residents of Primrose, Elandsfontein, Wychwood and surrounding areas marched to the Germiston Civic Centre to hand over a memorandum demanding better service delivery.

ALSO READ: Locals to hand memorandum about power woes to the City

With the recent number of power outages in the greater Germiston areas affecting businesses and residents, members of the public took a stand.

Their list of demands included a number of service issues, including repairing of road infrastructure and dealing with crime and corruption.

Topping the list was power issues.

Residents shared their grievances with the GCN and council officials about power outages, illegal connections, cable theft and vandalism.

They accused the municipality of not having proper security to protect infrastructure in the city.

Primrose and Elandsfontein community leaders handed over their memorandums to the council with seven working days deadline to respond.

Maggie Gabriel, from Elandsfontein shared her grievances concerning issues affecting her community.
She said illegal connections have toppled the power system.

“At some point we couldn’t touch our taps without being shocked. The problem began when the informal settlement was formed in Elandsfontein,” said Gabriel.

“Sewage started to be a huge issue because of the illegal dumping by the informal settlement residents.

“Sizwe Secondary School is also affected by illegal dumping and sewage,” she said.

“The metro used to disconnect illegal connections but they stopped three years ago. Our roads are in bad state, not to mention residents in Dassie Street who have sewage leaking out at their back yards for months,” said Gabriel.

Janet Gerretsen said residents are willing to work together with the council in getting issues in their areas sorted and highlight what is happening on the ground.

“The idea is to have an Ekurhuleni action group, with action groups for each area, so we can take these issues to our council.

“We are requesting for a monthly meeting with the mayor and the MMCs so we can get our issues brought to their attention and dealt with until things improve,” said Gerretsen.

Garretsen also said other issues that need to be addressed include illegal buildings, Simmer and Jack Landfill Site and the state of public parks.

“Our area is slowly becoming a slum and we as residents are not going to allow it.”

ALSO READ: Driehoek businesses lose revenue due to extended power outage

“Someone has to be held accountable. We complain about the same issues over and over and no one takes us serious. None of the councilors of our different wards attended the meeting,” she said.

David Barr said he suspects sabotage of the electricity infrastructure.

Extended relationships

The hand over of the memorandum also created unity amongst residents and presented them with an opportunity to forge new relationships.

Primrose and Elandsfontein residents have started an action groups for their areas.

The purpose of the groups is to gather information and highlight municipal issues that are a major concern to residents in these areas.

Residents also proposed the following solutions to the council:

1. A 24 hour task team to deal with immediate issues like cable theft, criminal activities relating to power and cables and selling of power to informal settlements illegally.

2. Supervisors and energy teams must act speedily to escalate and deal with power issues reported by residents and failure to do so, they must be held accountable.

3. The power cables at Shamrock Road must be moved to the other side of the road for easy access.

4. The energy department must change street lights to the bright LED lights and repair all street lights.

5. An early detection systems to detect when cables are stolen.

MMC of Water, Sanitation and Energy Senzi Sibeko, commended the community in conducting a peaceful march.

“We are working to upgrade electricity infrastructure around the city.

“The new budget has only started to be effective from July 1. In time things will start to improve,” said Sibeko.

“The council has listened to the challenges brought by the community. We are going to table our responses and share with the community our action plans,” said Sibeko.

ALSO READ: CoE to meet with Germiston residents about recent power outages

“There is short term issues we are going to attend to including cable fault issues, restoration time period and communication,” he said.

“Turn around times must be reduced and communication must be improved. We are also looking into security measures to catch criminals.”

“Shortage of vehicles, electricians and cables are budgeted for in the current budget,” said Sibeko.