REPORTING faults and complaints to the relative departments at eThekwini Municipality just got a whole lot easier. A new service delivery App, the Active Citizen App, which is available on Google Play, enables residents throughout eThekwini to report faults on their cellphone in a flash.
Ward councillors Chris Pappas and JP Prinsloo conceptualised the idea and were fortunate that a family member was able to make the idea a reality. The councillors started working on the project in December 2016 and Weazy Solutions are the App developers.
To date, 510 people in the city have downloaded the App and Councillor Pappas said frequent complaints reported on the App include illegal dumping, faulty street lights, potholes and water leaks.
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“When someone reports an issue, an email is sent directly to the relevant municipal reporting line such as eServices and a copy is also sent to the resident as well as the ward councillor,” said Pappas.
He said there are two versions of the App, one for residents and one for ward councillors.
“Only ward councillors who are registered with the App developer can access the councillor features. The ward councillor has access to additional features such as polling, noticeboard admin rights, ward level fault tracking and weekly reports. The App will soon have a polling feature so that ward councillors can run polls related to their communities and organise camps which focus on these issues,” he said.
There is a newsfeed feature that allows ward councillors to post notices, which is the equivalent of a modern day community noticeboard.
“The App allows a ward councillors to download a weekly log of all issues that their local residents have reported. Councillors can then oversee the resolution of the issues as per their oversight mandate. This is also a bonus as it allows councillors to track fault trends,” said Pappas.
He said in the near future the App will have a feature that allows faults to be geographically plotted onto a map so that councillors can visually analyse trends in their wards.
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“There is an admin cost to running the App which we are currently paying. We do not want to pass this on to users because we want it to be accessible to all residents. It would also be unethical for us to profit off of residents while executing our core mandate which is local service delivery. So the service will remain free to residents,” he said.
The App is only available for Android currently and Pappas said the developers hope to make it available to IOS and Apple once the full version is complete on 16 December.
How to download the App:
The App is available on the Google App store by going to the following link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=sd.com or by searching Active Citizen on the Google Play store.
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