Alet Meyer woke up to a phone call from an EPR officer. A pipe outside her home had sprung a large leak on 27 September and water was flowing into the street.
She contacted the Mogale City Local Municipality (MCLM) on its 011 951 3000 after-hours emergency number to report the burst pipe. Alet claimed that her details were taken down, but when she called a second time at about 6am, she was asked for her home address again.
“They only came at 3 o’clock that afternoon,” she explained, adding that they completed the work only at 8pm that Sunday night.
Alet said she was not informed that the driveway in front of their main gate would be dug up, neither was she asked permission to do so, although the space outside of a property’ boundaries, i.e. the sidewalk, is the property of the municipality and they have the right to conduct these repairs without a homeowner’s permission.
Alet’s main complaint is with what followed. The trench across the street section of her driveway was covered up with loose soil, their paving bricks were stacked next to the driveway and at the time of writing of this article 13 have passed without the issue being addressed.
We contacted the MCLM Water Department,” she said, “but they didn’t answer. We called the emergency number to inform them. They said that if the municipality doesn’t answer, she can’t help.”
She has covered the indentation left by the trench with metal grates so that they can drive into their property without damaging their vehicles. “It damaged our motor’s tyres and the rain washed away the soil.”
Alet lastly summerised her frustrations by saying, “People pay for water and electricity, and if you call the municipality they don’t answer at all. It’s unacceptable and I’m very upset about the clean drinking water that ran down the road for nearly 14 hours!”
The MCLM was contacted three days prior to writing the article and a response is reportedly pending.
After a similar article was published recently, the MCLM responded that water pipes are repaired by the Utilities Management Services department, that the Public Works, Roads and Transport department restores the roads, and that a work order needs to be submitted to the latter.
A follow-up article will be published when feedback is received from the MCLM on this matter.
