Editor – I urge the City of Ekurhuleni to do better on service delivery.
I started working in Germiston 11 years ago. I have dealt with different people employed by Ekurhuleni Germiston – from water consumption queries to electricity and water meter replacement.
Here are service delivery problems, according to departments, we are experiencing and hope the departments will reply and deal with the problems we are experiencing.
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Sewer department
We logged a call to the call centre on June 28 regarding the main sewer line that was blocked and pushing up into our building. At 16:50, Ekurhuleni contacted me to advise me they are at the building to open the blocked sewer line. I contacted the Ekurhuleni employee on June 29, in the morning to advise them that the sewer flooded our meter room and basement and asked why they didn’t open the blocked drains. The response was that the team cannot open a big blockage like that and they requested another team to open this blocked line. Our plumber had to pump out all the sewage and open the blocked sewer line as far as he could. In the interim, the electricity tripped and we had to contact the call centre again to reconnect our electricity.
On July 19, I logged a call again, the sewer line was again badly blocked and pushed at into our building again. A team was deployed on July 24 to open this blocked drain.
Why did Ekurhuleni not open the blocked sewer properly when we logged the blocked sewer line on June 28?
Storm water
When Ekurhuleni attends to the blocked sewer line on July 24, we asked them to open the blocked stormwater line that was also blocked due to the sewage running into it. We contacted the person responsible in regards to the blocked stormwater drain after the team that opened the sewer line advised us they cannot open the blocked stormwater drain as they needed a vet truck.
We have been informed that the contract has expired and that management will only sign a new contract in August or September. On July 28, the stormwater drain was opened.
Electricity
Due to the blockage of the sewer line that flooded the meter room, the electricity tripped. The building has three phases going into the building and one phase was down due to a fuse that blew in the meter room.
Funny that it was only a matter of hours to get Ekurhuleni electricity department to sort out an electrical problem at one of our residential buildings just a block away from this building.
I asked the caretaker of the residential building to send this team to the business building that we reported on July 19. I thank this team that responded to this plea from our caretaker. They attended to the problem on July 23.
We had three fully functional phase ways until July 30.
We tried to log a call with the call centre with no luck. We could only log a call on July 31. The phase was still off by August 18.
We are again standing on 19 days without power and counting.
Water
The same building hardly has water pressure. Our plumber has been instructed to instal a water tank and pump. Our plumber did get in contact with Ekurhuleni in October and the water department responded that it was a water pressure problem in the area and that they were tending to the problem.
The Ekurhuleni Germiston water department also tested our meter and replaced it. Even with the new water meter, we do not have sufficient water pressure. The incorrect water meter was captured on the account and I sent more than one email to inform them about this. I asked them to correct the information on their system. To date, this has not been done.
This is not the only building with the incorrect meter captured to the account, I have two buildings with incorrect meters captured on the account. When will Ekurhuleni Germiston correct the wrong information (meter) captured to our account?
Call centre
When you call the call centre at times, you often are number 68 in the queue. I hold on for about 40 minutes at a time. When you get to number one in the queue you get cut off and have to start again. Why does a person have to wait so long in a queue?
Refuse
Ekurhuleni Germiston likes to say the trucks are broken down and they only have one truck available for Ekurhuleni Germiston.
I have sent emails requesting a credit on our accounts as we are paying for three collections a week. At times, we had to do our own refuse removal and we did send photos of this. To date, there are still no credits on our accounts.
Noise pollution
We complained more than once about the disturbance of peace in the Germiston CBD area and yet more pubs are open in the CBD area and more and more residential citizens move out of Germiston as they cannot handle this noise pollution anymore. Who is handing out all the permits to the pubs?
I would like feedback on what we can expect from Ekurhuleni Germiston as we are paying our rates and taxes, and don’t use the Covid-19 virus as an excuse.
Nicolien Mahoney.
Editor’s comment – The GCN sent a request for comment to the CoE spokesperson on August 19, requesting comment by August 20 at 11:00. 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
