Stand up to be heard
Membership is open to anyone in the area who qualifies in terms of the constitution.
DISILLUSIONED by the failure of services in the area, Bellair, Rossburgh, and Seaview residents have formed the BelRosView organisation to hold the municipality accountable. The organisation was born at an inaugural meeting on December 14 at the RMC Church when concerned residents elected an interim. At a founding meeting on January 16, Stu Dlamini was elected as the first chairman.
“It is clear residents need a credible, legitimate, and structured organisation elected by the community to show a unified front to the municipality and join forces with others to create greater pressure. The current model of loose groups of concerned and affected people making complaints cannot have a significant impact,” he said.
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Members believe the many groups in the area, largely scattered and territorial in their approach, try to pressure councillors and the municipality but lack real teeth. Without cohesion between them, there is no strategy on how to deal with the municipality and councillors with a united front.
“Our areas also do not even have a proper, thorough, detailed and collective understanding of the problems and issues, and we have no overall plan. Without such, it is not easy to prioritise our issues and problems or pressure the City. Without a structured organisation, there cannot be a structured plan.”
There are people and groups in the area that work hard to get services properly delivered, and they are commended for some success. “In the current context of a failing municipality, it becomes more important to strengthen these efforts. Working together in a united organisation under one banner will strengthen our efforts.
“We need to show we are a strong, united community with wider city networks and partners that face similar delivery failures. In the face of this, we feel that the municipality will listen to us.”
As with other areas of the city, most services in the three suburbs are deteriorating and substandard, with old and failing infrastructure. Issues range from small to big – overgrown verges to trucks that create a hazard and park in residential areas.
“They also damage our pavement and roads. We have pollution from nearby industries. Dumping and littering is an ongoing issue, and the municipality has not run any education campaigns around this. New urban settlers are not aware of how Durban Solid Waste works.”
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The plan is to stay on top of complaints that go unanswered. “We already have incipient WhatsApp systems of reporting and escalating the problems, using our councillors. They will have to be an integral part of how we deal with service delivery. We voted them in, and they must work with us. There are obviously limits to what they can do as individuals, but with us, they can be more effective. We need to have a good partnership with them.”
Members believe the system of councillors and the way the ward committee is structured have failed in their areas. “There appears to be a poor rapport between residents, members of the ward committee and the councillors who chair them. Correcting this will go a long way in assisting with service delivery,” said Dlamini.
Membership is open to anyone in the area who qualifies in terms of the constitution. Once the organisation is fully initiated, a registration process will be designed and implemented.
“We have begun to build our community in a unified way, and it is clear we now have a significant number and various leaders with us on this journey. It is great that we have together been able to forge a sense of unity in our community and generated some hope for getting our issues dealt with in a structured and forceful manner.”
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