Ward 80 Councillor share his best wishes for Christmas

Councillor Makgoba Pagadi of Ward 80 shares his best wishes for this Christmas:

This was a difficult year on issues of service delivery in our area. In winter, community members were without electricity for two to three days. In addition one of our challenges was that there was not enough power not to cater for the whole ward, hence, there are illegal connections from informal settlements.

The permanent solution is to electrify the informal settlements which we are busy addressing. The Informal Settlements Upgrade with National Upgrading Support Progamme have given us a consulting group which we had a public meeting to discuss a way forward on 5 December.

The was also the issue of water shortages and sewer blockage in our community, even though Joburg Water tried to deliver water to the community by water tanks which did help. In terms of our sewer systems, we still need permanent solutions, that means upgrading pipes to bigger sized ones as the population in our ward is growing day by day and our informal settlements are still in need of chemical toilets. We did deliver a list and documents but no feedback was given to us.

The unhealthy environment where everyone dumps illegally [was also a challenge] as well as Pikitup’s problems with their fleets citywide. But as part of the councillors’ twice-a-month cleaning campaign, we are still cleaning the environment with different departments and community members.

Our traffic calming measures were challenged and still are in some streets, even though we have intervened by calling the acting managing director of the Johannesburg Roads Agency to assist. We were able to then get street humps done, priority was given to places next to schools and where accidents happened. The JRA also put up street names after our ambulances and police had problems attending to calls of emergencies in our area because of no street names. Another successful highlight is that of the JRA’s roads maintenance and upgrading of the gravel roads in Ext 5.

Incorrect billing by the revenue department was another challenge but the council meeting resolved on rehabilitation of those who owe the municipality by clearing their debt and making arrangements based on how much they can afford.

Illegal occupation on the land still remains a challenge, especially under Eskom powerlines. Crime in our schools, houses, business robbery and car hijacking and the usage of drugs and nyaope is still a problem. Non-govermental organisations lack support from City of Johannesburg departments to deal with rehabilitation at their centres. Unemployment is also a challenge for our people and youth as there are not enough opportunities.

Lastly, we would like to see all the proposals we made to the City of Joburg, Gauteng Provincial legislature and National Government being accepted.

And to the Midrand Reporter, keep on communicating to our community by providing them with information that’s helpful and useful.