Inconsistent feedback from the city irks residents

Residents in Ward 57, especially Thulisa Park, continue to be plagued by a lack of service delivery such as a lack of water, electricity and safety.

They said there are many unexplainable power cuts, and water cuts and they never receive any explanation. With the little the councillors provide as feedback, the residents do not believe it as they say there’s no truth in it.

The traffic lights at the intersection of South Rand Road and Tennyson Drive have been out for months and residents have logged countless calls with no response.

One resident, Nadia Rincon-Pereira, said that the intersection is a death trap at this point as cars fly through, no one stops and the mornings for everyone are chaos.

“Then there is the issue of Rand Airport Road, which isn’t even a road anymore. It could be labelled as a pothole city. The road is also extremely dangerous to drive on at this point. Our roads are covered in potholes, traffic lights are not working and to make it worse a massive pothole has started taking over that intersection as well.

“We sometimes sit for five days with no power and as of late water has been an issue for many residents too. A gentleman stated that he hadn’t had water for weeks. He even went as far as begging for help because he felt demoralised.

“Unfortunately as South Africans, we are all in a similar boat. We are all facing hard times, some harder than others. Sometimes frustration and anger can take over but when people start working against one another as opposed to with one another then we will travel down the same dark.

“We love our area, I’ve lived in Thulisa Park since I was two years old and I bought the property from my parents. Many residents have spent most of their lives in the area and the new residents are the kind of people who are looking to do the same,” she said.

The Southern Courier tried in vain to engage the City of Johannesburg about these problems.

Ward 57 Clr Faeeza Chame responded as follows, “The City of Gold is losing its shine with declining standards. Service delivery in Ward 57 extends from unreliable electricity and water supplies to potholes, erratic refuse removal, services determining infrastructure, and a general lack of maintenance.

“The role of a municipal ward councillor is that of oversite to represent the people in the ward irrespective of whether they voted or not in the best interest of the community.

“City Power has become one of the worst entities that provide services to the residents this is due to a lack of spares, contractors and resources. At times after load-shedding, most areas do not come back on due to faults or cable theft. This has become a norm. In most cases, City Power is not aware of outages until we have to bring it to their attention. This results in residents being frustrated on the WhatsApp groups and this also contributes to strikes.

“On February 21 after load-shedding, the power was not restored in areas like Thulisa Park, Regents Park and surrounding areas. I informed City Power in the morning and every time I spoke to them they promised that a team was on their way.

“Taking this into account, I was in a caucus meeting and could not give regular feedback to the groups. It is also very difficult for councillors to get hold of the technicians for feedback at times.

“The reality is that City Power doesn’t have enough spares or resources to do their work effectively. The electricity was eventually installed after 14 hours, which was unacceptable.

“Traffic lights not working or huge potholes and blocked kerb inlets have been a big issue due to budget. JRA has confirmed that traffic lights get vandalised too often.

“South Rand Road leading down to Rand Airport Road is a death trap for our motorists. JRA is well aware of the state of the road. A year ago, they only filled the potholes as a quick fix. The road needs to be resurfaced for a complete solution. I also had numerous site visits with JRA. Hopefully, with the new financial year, money will be made available for the repairs.

“Ward 57 has numerous WhatsApp groups that I am added on. I try to respond even if it is not immediately. At times, I receive more than 3 000 messages per day. Unfortunately, I also cannot control admins on the groups when they remove people who don’t follow the rules. Although I believe in freedom of speech we all need to respect one another on the groups.

“I encourage our residents to log calls for vandalised infrastructure, long grass, dumping and cable theft. I will keep on engaging with the service providers to provide effective service delivery to our area, although under difficult circumstances due to budget constraints and the city’s lack of accountability to the deserving ratepayers.”