Letter: Reader raises concerns on the deteriorating state of Ekurhuleni
"If we don’t start doing something soon we going to be another dump and dirty city."

EDITOR- I think Ekurhuleni must change their name to dump city and here are my reasons.
First of all, the mayor and his council must take a 50% pay cut on their salary because they get paid too much and are not doing their jobs.
If they don’t want to take a pay cut then they must pay for their own petrol and cellphones as their salaries are so big.
A lot of money will be saved that can be used for cleaning the metro.
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Driving around Ekurhuleni every day on business is a disgrace.
It shows how the people of the metro do not have respect for the area and just dump their building rubble next to the road.
Contractors who repair roads just leave the old tar and gravel next to the fixed road.
Early December 2024 when we had the heatwave in James Wright Road, Norkem Park, a water pipe burst.
At 08:15 on the day, two people from the Ekurhuleni water department found the leak, dug a hole and fixed the leak.
With the soil saturated, in that heatwave, they said they would come back three days later and close the hole. As of January 9, the hole is still open.
They can’t say we need to see if the leak will start again because then they should not be doing the job if they are not qualified plumbers.
• Driving from Evergreens on Pretoria Road towards Vlei Street just past JJ Maritz there is a new illegal dump site.
• Driving from Green Ave in Edleen towards Plane Road in Kempton Park it looks like a dump site with building rubble and garbage next to the road.
• Driving from Kempton city centre on Pretoria Road towards Highveld Road, on your left the contractor who tarred CR Swart Road left all the old tar and gravel next to the fixed road.
Everywhere in Ekurhuleni you can see the same effect, people just dumping their rubbish and building rubble what a disgrace.
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Now this is why I say the mayor and his council must take a 50% pay cut.
Then they must hire an honest contractor who will not ask for backhands and collect all this rubbish and go dump it down the old mine shafts till they are full and there are a lot of them.
We will solve two problems, a cleaner city and no more zama zama’s who dig tunnels under roads and then the roads collapse.
On Main Reef Road, past Brakpan raceway, there is a sinkhole that was caused by zama zama’s, that road has been closed for four years, it is still not repaired.
On Rondebult Road in Boksburg, that sinkhole has been there for a year. How long is it going to take to repair?
Who’s paws need to be polished before something is done?
The trees in the residential areas are overgrown, nothing is been done.
Why do the residents need to report it on an app that does not work properly, and if you do report it, two weeks later you receive a message that the problems have been resolved. But no trees have been trimmed or even street lights are not fixed.
Even the EMPD and SAPS drive past people who dump their rubble and don’t do anything about it.
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We don’t have traffic lights because they get cut down, street lights get stolen, a few weeks later the street pole gets cut off and cut up for scrap metal, where is the law and order?
Where is the law and order to stop fireworks, where EMPD and SAPS are also participating in shooting these fireworks, it is supposed to be illegal in residential areas.
Coming off from the R21 onto Voortrekker Road into Kempton Park, this is the first view of our town to visitors, but driving down Voortrekker Road is a disgrace from the top to the bottom.
If we don’t start doing something soon we going to be another dump and dirty city.
How many EMPD officers does it take to man a portable traffic camera: answer nine. That is what I saw on January 6 on Zuurfontein Road towards Sebenza.
One is manning the camera, four are standing behind him and talking and the other four sitting in their cars.
That is a total waste of manpower, some of these staff could have been utilised somewhere else.
Just wondering. This is my opinion and I wonder how many other people are feeling the same.
CONCERNED RESIDENT
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EDITOR’S COMMENT- spokesperson for the City of Ekurhuleni, Zweli Dlamini, commented as follows:
The letter is noted and the issues have been escalated to the customer relations management team for noting and processing.
It is also important to encourage residents to report incidents and service delivery issues via the call centre so that they can be attended to as and when they are spotted.
Also critical is the issue of public participation in the Integrated Development Plan process, which informs the budget allocation of the municipality in the current, mid-term and long term.
The city remains committed to providing quality and sustainable services with the aim of bettering the lives of citizens within our means and do take such complaints very seriously.