Ombudsman aids locals in understanding its role

The office of the Ombudsman in the City of Johannesburg hosted a citizenship information clinic for Dobsonville residents at Kopanong Hall on April 25.

The initiative was aimed at educating and informing residents about the Ombudsman’s role in investigating cases of maladministration and enhancing service delivery.

Participating in the clinic were key internal and external stakeholders, including industry representatives and entities such as the Public Protector, South African Human Rights Commission, Legal Aid South Africa, National Consumer Commission, Motor Industry Ombudsman of SA and Group Forensics and Investigation Services (GFIS).

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Speaking to Urban News, Ombudsman for the City of Johannesburg, Advocate Siduduzo Gumede said given that their office is a relatively new concept and that not many municipalities have one, it is not shocking that many people are unaware of its existence.

“We are here to inform the public about channels available to them for lodging complaints when they are dissatisfied with specific actions taken by the municipality.

“We are trying to show them that there are ways of addressing service delivery matters so as to avoid seeing people going on the streets and destroying infrastructure out of frustration,” said Gumede.

He added that it’s critical that the public understands that the Office of the Ombudsman values them, acknowledges their problems, and prioritises resolving those problems. One way they do this is by holding citizenship information clinics.

During the session, Advocate Gumede offered attendees a platform to voice their concerns and seek resolutions to various issues they face while engaging with different City entities.

Dobsonville resident, Sibongile Ngwenya raised her concerns regarding crimes committed on public infrastructure and street sewage drains that are not properly maintained.

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“When installing streetlights, please replace the ones we already have with the asbestos ones because criminals find it easy to vandalise and stripe cables on the ones we currently use.

“Also renovations are needed for our street sewage drains. We require appropriate maintenance when it comes to sewage drains because they have been in use for a long time and, in most cases the pipes block and it take days to get them fixed,” said Ngwenya.

Many residents voiced out that the Dobsonville Cemetery must be cleaned up and that the City must stop ignoring and abandoning the property.

Following the community’s views over issues that require attention from the office of the Ombudsman, advocate Gumede assured the residents that he will take all the matters brought forward to the office and talk to the officials that work under those departments.

“Officials who are implicated in these issues as well as their departments should come up with programmes to address them so that we can contain unhappiness and channel grievances in a way that is not disruptive,” concluded Gumede.