#Letter: KDM must sort out traffic department vacancies

Ballito’s ward 30 Cllr Jack Abrahams writes:

Last week we were hit with stage 4 loadshedding and the power was interrupted three times a day.

The morning and afternoon time slots coincided with the peak traffic hours coming into and out of Ballito.

With the M4 still closed, all traffic come into town via the N2. With the traffic lights out this is causing traffic build-up onto the N2 and even as far back past the Umhlali Country Club.

I had requested the KwaDukuza Superintendent and Executive Director to deploy a pointsman on Wednesday last week when stage 4 first kicked in.

Not one was available on the morning or the afternoon. I was told one would come out on the Thursday. On Thursday and Friday mornings no pointsmen were available, frustrating motorists as they were stuck in traffic trying to get kids to school and then off to work.

There was only a pointsman available in the afternoons.

The executive director for community safety advised that owing to the unforeseen loadshedding and lack of staff availability, a pointsman could not be deployed in the mornings and that it would be sorted out this week.

The traffic department has the highest number of vacancies available in the community safety portfolio, and we hope the budget allows for the department to fill these vacancies.

Another business unit with a high vacancy rate is the electrical department. Recently no technicians were available to go out and attend to faults as they had capped their overtime.

Overtime limits are reached quickly due to there being insufficient staff available to tend to our aging infrastructure.

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