Residents of Umthambeka and the New Bondhouses recently held a community meeting regarding the feedback about the petition with issues concerning the residents.
According to one of the community representatives, Mr Develd Monyai, for the past five months they have been experiencing water cuts without anyone from council explaining what the problem was.
“Attempts to try engage our local councillor to solve our problems proved to be fruitless. He does not seem interested in helping us to resolve our problems. We felt, as tax payers, that these matters must be brought council’s attention, which was also stated in a petition,” said Mr Monyai.
The residents said they depend on the electricity as their source of energy but it is unreliable as it goes on and off, and damages their electrical appliances.
Mr Monyai said their streetlights are not working.
“We have been experiencing a high number of housebreakings over the past months. We are requesting a high mast (Apollo) to be installed in the area to reduce the level of crime. We are also requesting speed humps. We have, in the past, experienced accidents with people being knocked down by speeding motorists while crossing Musa Street. We have children who are crossing this busy road to and from school, which is exposing them to danger,” said Mr Monyai.
The Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality’s (EMM) spokesperson, Mr Themba Gadebe, confirmed that they did receive a petition from the residents regarding their grievances, which was answered on July 7.
“The Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality (EMM) medium voltage source of electricity to the area is very good and reliable. Problems experienced were because of cables damaged by external contractors while they are busy with the new bus route. Some outages were experienced from Eskom’s side. None of the mentioned reasons are within the control of the department and all efforts are undertaken to quickly assist contractors with way-leaves when requested to do so. Unless the problem is not related to the area and only a specific house or small area is affected, we are not aware of problems other than the ones mentioned. However, if the problem is related to only a house or small area (not the whole of Umthambeka) residents are urged to provide details of the area affected so that EMM technicians can investigate what the cause is and whether it was related to the above-mentioned problems.
“Technicians have been experiencing problems with street lights in the area. When a complaint is received and investigated, technicians found the breakers off on numerous occasions. When tests are conducted there is no problem with the cables and the load is not sufficient to trip the breakers. It is therefore assumed that some criminals deliberately switch off the breakers, which would explain the complaint of crime in the area. Following a site inspection, all the breakers where switched back on and the individual lights were all repaired. The locking system to the boxes has been replaced with an improved system,” said Mr Gadebe.
Mr Gadebe said all individual street lights were checked and repaired.
“A contractor damaged a cable in the area of Chris Hani and Sam Najoma streets, which left the mentioned streets dark. The cable has been repaired and according to our knowledge there are no outstanding streetlight issues in the area. In terms of Council policy we cannot install high mast lights in an area where there are conventional street lights. Should the consumers find any light out they must please report it to the EMM call centre on 0860543000 and obtain a reference number. The EMM endeavours to deal with all complaints received within the approved standard time frame of five days,” said Mr Gadebe.
