This letter was sent to the GCN and mayor of Ekurhuleni Mzwandile Masina.
I am not sure where to start.
Maybe I should start by giving the metro 10 out of 10 for destroying Germiston and Ekurhuleni as a whole.
As you drive through Germiston, it’s a complete dump. I don’t think it would be rated in the top 20 African towns.
Germiston was once a proud and beautiful city. You cannot hide behind Covid-19 for this decline accelerated in 2017/18.
The residents of Germiston and Ekurhuleni have become more and more despondent by the day. This shows in the number of daily demonstrations.
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My wife tells me to always remain positive. This I try very hard to do, but it’s very difficult with the poor and bad management of the infrastructure we experience daily.
The government requests residents to report faults to improve the service delivery, and most residents do this regularly. But to what result? Nothing happens.
Recently the refuse collection has become a willy nilly exercise – now you see me or you don’t. If you report a fault, very little happens.
Most people know you can report a fault via the CoE app, call centre or email. Most of the time it’s very difficult to get through to the call centre and if you do, invariably the line is either of poor quality or the call drops, especially at night.
There are some very good and caring call centre staff and for others, it’s just a job.
The CoE app seems to work quite well, but when you receive an SMS reference number you cannot always assign this to the CoE app report. There is still plenty of work to do on the app.
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All that most residents ask is that potholes, street lights, traffic lights, water leaks, overgrown grass and trees are addressed. We also need stormwater drains and gutters to be kept clean to prevent flooding.
I have been reporting street lights that are not working for many months. Very little has happened – either the staff do not want to do their job or they are not capable of doing it.
We had a section of street lights burning 24/7 for over four years, then to our surprise, they started working correctly (off during the day and on at night).
This lasted for about a month. Since then they have not been working at all.
It must be costing the metro and ratepayers a fortune. Metro staff say they will come back to reassess the situation, and that’s the last time we see them.
I know the word “maintenance” is the crux of the matter. Either it does not exist in the metro’s planning or department heads do not know how to plan for it.
There is a large number of people out of work that stand on street corners looking for work. Surely these people can be used to keep the streets clean and tidy.
I have worked in both government and private organisation. The last thing I was taught is that the “job” is never complete until the area you have been working in is cleaned up.
None of the metro departments does this. They leave the work area in such a bad state, whether it be grass-cutting, tree-pruning, pothole repairs or repair of water leaks.
B Taylor
Editor’s comment – the GCN sent a request for comment to the mayor and City of Ekurhuleni on April 22 at noon, requesting comment by April 23 at 9am. at the time of going to print, no comment had been received.
Contact the newsroom by emailing: Marietta Lombard (Editor) germistoncitynews@caxton.co.za, or (Journalists) Busi Vilakazi busiv@caxton.co.za
