Contractor work not up to scratch

SHODDY maintenance work at a block of flats in Kenneth Gardens has angered residents, who claim the city is hiring second-rate contractors to carry out maintenance work at the housing estate.

According to a resident, Mr Kreason Pather, paint contractors have been working on the building but he believes they have no idea what they are doing.

“The painters arrived to work, but had no damp seal to paint the building before adding the coat of paint. When the men came to paint my flat, I mentioned there was a crack outside the one bedroom window, where a leak had developed, but they just painted over the crack, and other cracks on the outside of the building. I had to supply my own damp seal because we have a big problem with damp. One of the men living in our flat has been getting sick every month for the past three years. We even had to supply the painters with brushes to do the job! They didn’t know what they were doing,” he said.

Shortly after the painting had been completed, a downpour sent rain pouring into the room through the crack in the window.

“We had to get a new bed, it was totally soaked! You can still see the damp through the paint. You need to solve that problem first before painting,” he said.

The angry resident said the painters also spilled paint on the staircase outside, and hadn’t cleaned it up, despite him pointing it out to them.

“They just walked through it! We had to get our floors sanded because of the paint mess. We also quoted for all the rooms to be painted but the damp in the roof was not fixed. You can’t take unqualified people to do these jobs. The municipality has put out tenders for the past six years, but no one ever came to do the work. A plumber also came to sort out toilets, and left one old, broken toilet pan lying on the ground outside, which is unsightly and unprofessional,” he said.

He pointed out one of the down pipes which is being held up with wire, and hadn’t been fixed.

In response to queries by Berea Mail, eThekwini Head of Communications, Tozi Mthethwa said: “The maintenance work on Begonia Court has been inspected. It was noted that the paint work on the external walls continues to experience blistering. Investigations also showed that this was caused by the roof top derbigum that has cracked and is brittle. The service provider has been requested to waterproof that section on the roof top and to rectify the work.”