RNM intervenes in fibre installation
The municipality, led by municipal manager Max Mbili, has been in meetings with the installation company's management.
Ray Nkonyeni Municipality has taken drastic steps to address the challenges caused by the recent optic fibre cable installations, following a series of damages to either electricity cables, water pipes, roads or driveways.
RNM spokesman, Simon April said that since the fibre cable installations began residents had experienced power cuts and/or water supply challenges.
In addition to this there have been damages to roadways and driveways and all this had resulted to residents being severely affected and inconvenienced.
RNM, Ugu District Municipality and Eskom have all been affected as they have struggled with the turnaround time to restore power and water and to repair roads, due to the unexpected and high numbers of incidents.
The municipality, led by municipal manager Max Mbili, has been in meetings with the installation company’s management.
“It was it was agreed work would stop until the latter submits a formal request to the municipality – and then the two parties will have to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) before the work can resume,” said Mr April.
Key among the points in the MOU are:
• The company will have to inform RNM within 10 minutes of the damage of the electricity cable or water pipe
• The affected entity (RNM or Ugu District Municipality or Eskom) will then provide the company with the contractor to fix the damaged property or item in order for the supply to be restored and that shall happen within an hour
• The company will bear the costs of fixing the said property or item
• RNM, where possible, will provide the company with the dangerous areas for the company to avoid when installing the optic fibre cable.
Both parties acknowledged that since this work had started, residents had been badly affected and therefore deserved a sincere apology.
The municipality is also of the view that this should have been handled better even before the work was permitted to start and is therefore, of its own accord, sincerely apologising to the residents who have been negatively affected.
“Going forward, no work will be done up until both parties sign a MOU which will set out means of quickly attending to unintended happenings or incidents,” said Mr April.
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