Meet the interim ward 88 councillor
WESTDENE – Interim ward 88 councillor works together with residents to tackle challenges in the community.
Ward 88 has an interim ward councillor, who took over from Nicholas Lorimer, focused on addressing challenges in the community.
Westdene resident, Andrew Marais said since the previous ward councillor resigned, there will be an election at the end of April.
In the meantime, there has to be someone who can delegate to the council legislator and the residents of ward 88. He officially started his duties on 7 January, however, has been a proportional representation councillor for the Democratic Alliance since August 2016.
As the interim ward councillor, he takes care of residents’ concerns about service delivery, escalates them to the relevant departments and also identifies issues which are a concern to residents and how to deal with them.
“One of the main concerns residents face is billing issues and it’s common knowledge we have an issue with City Power and the electricity supply because there’s an issue with ageing infrastructure at the substation in Roosevelt Park.
Fortunately, since it’s been addressed, we seem to be experiencing fewer outages. I must say City Power is coming to the party in terms of coping with the ageing infrastructure, while we wait for the current project, which started recently, to upgrade and ensure there’s a more reliable power supply,” said Marais.
The interim ward councillor highlights he takes the complaints of residents who contact him directly and via social media seriously.
Ward councillors are supported by ward committees within my ward and there is also a Facebook page which residents can go on and council issues are addressed. Between the ward committee and Marias, they monitor that page and if they see a matter is not being attended to, they then escalate it.
“When there are meetings which relate to infrastructures such as installations or planned projects, which will affect residents, there are meetings which are called regularly and the details are placed on ward 88’s Facebook page.”
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Details: andrewmarais@discoverymail.co.za, 082 881 5687.
