DA MP lambasts service delivery in Alex

The Democratic Alliance says government’s poor service delivery and lack of consultation on development initiatives results in wasteful and fruitless expenditure

which may lead to State coffers running dry.

This was said exclusively to Caxton Community Newspapers by Member of Parliament for the Sandton-Alex constituency and Shadow Minister of Labour, Ian Ollis. Still in his first year of a five-year term, Ollis was highlighting challenges in his constituency which includes wards 107 and 108 in Alex where he said there was a risk of demonstrations and riots over poor service delivery.

He said government operations were characterised by fruitless and wasteful expenditure, and cost overruns and unauthorised cross-subsidising of programmes and projects, leaving the really urgent ones such as housing, incomplete with poor quality or buildings left unoccupied for unexplained reasons. This, he said, derived from government’s lack of management and planning capacity, corruption – which was contrary to the ethos of good governance – and the inability of local government to prioritise the basic needs of citizens.

“The cost overruns, failed projects and programmes, and general lethargy in service delivery has led to DA’s councillors in mayoral committees seeking answers to many questions that are still to be answered,” said Ollis.

He cited the Women’s Hostel as an example of where millions of rand is allocated annually for maintenance, but which never achieves results, leaving residents exposed to sewage spilling onto the courtyard and entrances near the premises.

“The contractors continue to expose residents to the health hazard we reported to the South African Human Rights Commission which recommended remedial steps – but still nothing has been done.”

Also, he identified Madala Hostel, where thousands of residents stay in high rise flats, as a tragedy waiting to happen. “The hostel has been condemned as unsafe by engineers. All amenities in the flats are dysfunctional, power cannot be restored, there are no window panes, the floors have been declared structurally unsafe and a man died last year from an unexplained fire,” he said.

Ollis claimed the fruitless expenditure sidelined the delivery of houses which, coupled with the lack of sustainable job creation, resulted in people’s desperation for any form of shelter. “The effects of fruitless expenditure is also encroaching on the middle and upper classes through the Eskom saga and the billing crisis, which City authorities denied but the president affirmed. This will lead to national bankruptcy by 2020,” he predicted

Details: Email; ianollis@lantic.net