Shop owners ‘gatvol’

SINCE mid December of last year, Sajjad Mohammed, a business owner in Landdrost Street has had no luck in his dealings with the Abaqulusi Municipality.

According to Mr. Mohammed, workers from the municipality arrived around December 12 of last year, dug a gaping hole in the pavement outside of his shop, allegedly to repair the underground pipes, and left after two or three days, with no further attempt being made at filling the hole, or even cleaning up the dusty mess which was left in front of the shop.

With Christmas being the busiest time of the year for his business, Mr. Mohammed stated that this eyesore certainly had a negative effect on trading and, after several daily attempts to report this to the municipality, he has still not been successful in obtaining any reasonable reply, other than that they were busy and had no time to attend to the matter.

“What if somebody falls in there, like a small child, or someone walking past at night who doesn't see the hole?” said a concerned Sajjad, when commenting on the perilous cleft which has plagued this pathway for more than a month.

Mr. Mohammed added that he, himself, had to clean up some of the dirt which had been left in the wake of the excavation, as it had been hindering access to the entrance of the store.

Over and above the gaping crevice in the pavement, which is littered with rubbish, drifting nonchalantly in the puddle of muck one can only assume is water, or at least something similar, Mr. Mohammed also pointed out that the electrical box directly in front of the entrance to his shop had no cover and had been standing open for approximately six months.

He expressed his concern that, aside from this possibly being a danger to the public, it also posed a problem in that vandals often disconnect the electricity to the shop, sometimes in the middle of the night, setting off the alarm and just generally causing an inconvenience to him and other shop owners in the area.

The question remains, with the holiday season well behind us, why does the municipality not have time to attend to these pressing matters? Surely everyone should be back in work mode by now.

Will it take a calamity, or perhaps even a lawsuit from an unfortunate victim of one of these exposed public hazards to get someone to make the time to attend to these issues?