Letter to the editor: No service, only lip service

Toni Walsh writes:

Regarding your front page article, For the love of God, week ending 15 August.

Does the City of Joburg really care about the deteriorating situation in our suburbs? The answer to that is a big ‘no’ because they did not even bother to respond.

Does the city council even have a bylaw department? Judging by the bylaw infringements you see around Joburg, there seems to be no bylaw enforcement by the city council.

There are illegal communes springing up all over Joburg, illegal taverns all over the place, and people embarking on building alterations without proper planning and permission. We complain to the various departments but nothing gets done. There is illegal dumping, but Pikitup does nothing as there CEO Amanda Nair is always in the news for the wrong reasons. She goes to Austria to see how they manage their waste disposal. It is a waste of ratepayer’s money as she can go to Cape Town and see how they run the city.

DA councillors, Marcel Ravid and Jack Cooper try to assist ratepayers by referring our complaints to the city council, but their hands are tied if their requests are ignored. Rodger Chadwick of the Orange Grove Residents Association also does a great job in attending to liquor licence applications and processing objections. However, the Gauteng liquor board seems to issue licences without a thorough investigation to see if the applications are valid. There are more liquor outlets along Louis Botha Avenue than Las Vegas.

I would like to see the residents of this once beautiful city vote with their heads and not their hearts when we have the local government elections in 2016.

If you want a well-run city where bylaws are enforced, then we have to get a party that does not pay lip service to the residents’ concerns.