Fynnlands clean-up is municipality’s responsibility

EDITOR – Feedback on the Bluff ‘Point Road’ clean-up efforts.

Firstly, very few ratepayers in the Fynnland area were aware of the so-called ‘Fynnland Point Road clean-up efforts’ as this was not advertised anywhere prior to your paper hitting the streets on the day the clean-up operation was supposed to take place.

Secondly, a large number of the ratepayers in this area are pensioners and unable to fiscally take part in such an operation and those lucky enough to have a job are at work.

Thirdly, the ‘diligent’ approach (see photo) as shown by those whose job it actually is to do the clean-up will for certain uninspire any possible volunteers like myself. By the way, I have contributed to a heap of rubbish that was larger than that of all 10 Ethekwini workers together over the same time period, however, when witnessing the workers’ attitude (as the photo explains) I withdrew my efforts to assist.

Despite uplifting one truck load of filth and off-cuts from a 30-metre section of municipal land at the corner of Bluff and Iran roads, at the substation side, on 22 October, the rest of the municipal land as reported in the letter ‘Filth as far as the eye can see’ in your newspaper of 4 October, page 10, was left untouched. However, the filth in this area has accumulated so much in the last eight to 10 years that should the same 30-metre of land be cleaned up properly, another truck-load can be uplifted.

See the pictures of the 30-metre stretch after it was so-called ‘cleaned up’. Note: Some of this filth left behind is cable strips from the adjacent sub-station.

If I correctly interpreted the article “Bluff divided over “Point Road clean-up efforts” in your newspaper dated 25 October, then it suggests that we ratepayers must go and clean up municipal property including the municipal mess and still pay rates as well? It is therefore no wonder that this area has deteriorated into the state in which it is.

I noticed some of the 10 Ethekwini employees at work during the three hour clean-up operations. On questioning one employee as to the whereabouts of their tools such as rakes, spades, forks, and so on (other than a petrol-driven chainsaw and a few wire pokers to pick up cardboard and paper), I was informed that the tools are on the truck.

“And where is the truck now”?

“It has left and is gone!”

How on earth is a clean-up operation to take place without the necessary tools, equipment and supervision?

It is not the ratepayers’ functions to clean up municipal land, maintain pathways, sweep streets, repair storm water drains (which was damaged by the municipal trucks in their efforts to clear a blocked drain) or clean these blocked stormwater drains, trim verges and walkways from overgrowth, replace or refit manhole lids, pick up DSW waste that is lost in the wake of collecting household waste, fit covers to exposed electrical street light pole/s, remove municipality contractors’ rubble or make safe trenches that are dug-up and then left open for months on end, remove illegal municipality signs from lamp posts as they do not have the municipality’s approval stickers, and the list goes on and on.

This three hour clean-up operation, although welcomed by a number of residents in this area, was just a tip of the iceberg.

The authorities and those in power have let down the ratepayers in the Fynnland area and it is clear that the rates spent on the Bluff are unequally distributed. The Bluff does not consist of Marine Drive, Tara or parts of Bluff Road nor of Foreshore Drive and its beaches only.