DEAR Editor;
I am writing this letter to thank the general public for its cooperation and understanding of the difficulties under which the DA councillors, and particularly the ward councillors are working in trying to assist the public with the water outages that they are experiencing across the lengths and breadth of our areas of jurisdiction.
This letter is not to attack or defend anyone, but merely to inform and to give a better understanding of the role of councillors as set out in legislation.
Firstly, I want to draw attention to the fact that Ugu and Ray Nkonyeni Municipality (RNM) are two separate entities.
Ugu’s main function is to supply water and to reticulate sewage.
RNM deals with everything else, from potholes to street lights, as well as town planning, protection services, traffic lights, beaches and verges, to name just a a few things.
Secondly, I want to draw your attention to the fact that ward councillors are elected to serve on RNM.
They fall under the RNM code of conduct which states that councillors are responsible for the good governance of RNM.
They assist the public with issues relating to service delivery that RNM is responsible for.
If the public has service delivery problems, they are expected to contact the municipality’s different departments or the call centre to raise concerns.
Very often the councillor becomes the first port of call and is expected to report on behalf of the residents, which we do.
At the moment, and for almost the past five years, most of the complaints councillors have had to deal with are water and sewage related and we, as ward and PR councillors, have had to contend with Ugu’s inability to provide a reliable water supply.
Councillors have faced the brunt of the anger of the community as we are the buffer between Ugu and the people.
The problem we are facing is that we can only report back to the public on information received from the official water supplier, which is Ugu.
Its reports are irregular, to say the least.
We cannot vouch for the correctness of the reports and often people dispute the feedback.
Social media has become an outlet for many frustrations and, when our councillors give that same feedback as received from Ugu to our social media groups, we are blamed for giving incorrect information.
Unfortunately, we can only give what we get.
Nevertheless, the DA councillors will continue to be of service to our constituents and try to give as updated as possible information as we can.
We will continue to demand factual information from Ugu to keep you informed and to assure you, the residents of RNM, that the DA councillors will continue to fight for your human rights.
We will not abrogate our responsibilities.
COUNCILLOR DOUG RAWLINS
Ray Nkonyeni Municipality DA Caucus Leader
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