Metro implements war room for service delivery
Significant progress has been made in that regard as highlighted in the mayor’s six month review and it will remain and ongoing priority.
The Tshwane metro has introduced a weekly service delivery programme to track the progress of core operational service delivery and maintenance.
According to acting Tshwane mayoral spokesperson Jordan Griffiths, “the service delivery war room addresses particular aspects such as streetlight repairs, pothole filling, response times to water leaks and electricity outages, grass cutting and various other horticultural services”.
This follows after Centurion residents complained about the lack of functioning streetlights on the Rooihuiskraal bridge.
DA-councillor, Casper McDonald of ward 64, said it was not just a matter of changing globes so residents could have lights.
McDonald said the reason why the streetlights were out of order was because “the entire electrical line in that area is faulty mainly due to a lack of preventative maintenance on one hand, and theft on the other hand”.
“The infrastructure has simply not been maintained for at least 26 years that I’m aware of and I’ve been a councillor for the past 15 years,” McDonald said.
“That is also the cause of complaints about the water system and potholes in general”.
Griffiths said during the period where the city was under administration, “this core basic service delivery effectively stopped. It has required us to re-initiate various operations across the city that were effectively stalled”.
“The challenges facing Rooihuiskraal from an infrastructure perspective have largely been driven by instances of vandalism against infrastructure and theft, particularly of cables which severely impacts our facilities.”
He said the metro is ensuring that there is proactive maintenance taking place across the city.
“In particular,” Griffiths said, “by ensuring to track the interface between complaints filed on customer relations management systems. As well as how these are being addressed and responded to at an operational level.”
“This is allowing us to address the backlogs pertaining to core basic service delivery and maintenance,” Griffiths said.
He said significant progress has been made in that regard as highlighted in the mayor’s six-month review and it will remain and ongoing priority.
Residents were concerned a fatal accident was imminent early in the mornings when it was still dark and many pedestrians and recyclers use that road.
McDonald said he will endeavour to accommodate faults in the system in next year’s budget.
He said the entire project concerning the said bridge, also entailed the building of two connection roads. That was the provincial department’s responsibility, which never materialised.
“I wrote submissions in this respect about seven years ago. As part of the provincial upgrading of the N14 starting at Lanseria airport, I requested that the department at least finishes the onramp.”
McDonald said the department has already started with the project at Diepsloot and progressed up to Brakfontein intersection.
“At least that will alleviate a lot of traffic because residents currently use Rooihuiskraal Street to reach the Old Johannesburg Road R101. By taking the proposed onramp it will enable residents to use the N14 to reach the city, Johannesburg and Polokwane.”
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