Ivory Park‘s Ward 79 councillor, Thomas Maluleka highlighted a couple of the challenges the community faces when trying to address the issues residents are currently forced to live with.
Maluleka said the ward has eight informal settlements which clearly show that people are in need of land and housing.
“Land near Allandale Road had been expropriated by the previous Gauteng government but was recently reversed and reasons as to why are not yet known,” said Maluleka.
The particular land was not only for Ward 79 residents but was for the whole of Midrand, but some residents were going to be beneficiaries of the homes built there.
According to the councillor, 65 houses are being built in his ward, but only a number of houses have been completed.
“Community members are forced to live with potholes, under-developed roads, blocked sewers and dark streets because of poor drainage maintenance, street lights and dysfunctional transformers for more than a year, yet the issue has been reported numerous times and we are sent from pillar to post when trying to resolve it.
“Poor maintenance has created a cycle of poor service delivery and tough living conditions, which continue to expand instead of being minimised.”
Maluleka said the biggest problem when it comes to improving service delivery is the slow response time. Perhaps call centres are short staffed because residents are put on hold for a long time when calling to report matters and most of the time the calls end before they are attended to because of a lack of airtime.
The ward has two under-developed sports grounds.
The councillor said they are struggling to maintain as well as develop these facilities even though they have allegedly tried to reach out to the Gauteng Department of Sports for assistance, so the community depends largely on private sector donations.
Maluleke concluded by urging the community to stop by-law infringements such as illegal parking, which leads to blocked traffic flows, street vendors who occupy the entire pavement, forcing people to then walk on the street as well as unauthorised erecting of structures on municipal land.
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