Amanzimtoti residents irate at outages caused by fibre contractors

Ward 97 councillor, André Beetge’s office has been inundated with complaints regarding water and electricity outages resulting from the three contractors currently tasked with the installation of optical fibre in the area who are compromising municipal infrastructure. In response, Beetge said these are independent service providers that are neither governed, controlled or subject to the municipality.

They merely utilise the road reserve along the sidewalks for the installation of their equipment alongside other services that include municipal infrastructure. “While negligence and ignorance certainly plays a role, in reality some of what is happening could have been averted, had previous contractors that installed the original infrastructure, trenched to the correct depth and kept to the initial plans.

This clearly didn’t happen, as quite often water and/or electricity infrastructure is found too shallow or diverted from plan to facilitate hard ground, stones, driveway access and so on. “We have done our own investigation regarding other areas in the city where fibre is being installed or was previously installed, following which we expressed concern to senior management, as it became clear that these problems could continue even after installation is complete. The reason being that infrastructure could be slightly compromised, with small cracks, scuffing and so on, which then gets effected by future pressure or water exposure, and officials at grassroots level appear to agree and support this.

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“On the bright side, it’s an obstacle that we can overcome in light of the bigger picture of enhanced technology but until such time as it’s completed at the end of November or beginning of December, we urge residents to report outages as soon as possible to the municipality on 080-311-1111 or via WhatsApp for water to 073-148-3477 and electricity to 076-791-2449.” Beetge requested that residents share the information along with the reference number on social media, so that others are both aware that it’s been reported and able to secure additional information as opposed to merely complaining on a platform not monitored by the municipality and as such, not securing the necessary attention.   DID YOU KNOW?

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