Zinkwazi resident claims municipal neglect
Resident disgusted with state of affairs, but parks and gardens said complaints have been addressed.
With a beach cottage in the Zinkwazi Beach area, Durban resident Peter Latter said he was disgusted with the area’s state of affairs over the past few months.
“We visit Zinkwazi every weekend arriving on Friday morning and leaving Monday, but this past weekend was to ‘coin a phrase’ the straw that broke the camel’s back,” said Latter.
He said the village was untidy, grubby and unkempt.
“I counted 31 piles of garden refuse along Glen Drive alone. Refuse bins are overflowing and never emptied and further there is not enough of them. The grass verges and parks have not been cut for some time, as the grass is very long,” said Latter.
Latter also noticed a section on Glen Drive that has been dug up to repair a water leak but the road was not restored and he said it has been like this since before Christmas.
“The formation of the Metro Municipalities in some instances has been a total failure with rates and taxes escalating beyond belief and the service levels dropping below acceptable standards. Zinkwazi is a typical example of this deterioration in service delivery,” said Latter.
He said Leonatis Park at the end of Glen Drive is in a disgusting state, with long grass, broken trees and branches and full refuse bins.
“This park is for the surrounding community, but with the state that it is in, hardly anyone goes there anymore,” said Latter.
Che Gopi, KwaDukuza’s parks and gardens manager, said he has been made aware of the complaints and have already put measures in place to deal with the problems.
“The complaints that affect the parks and gardens section have already been attended to,” said Gopi.
He said with regard to the long grass, that the grass is cut once a month in the growing season.
Gopi also said that a garden refuse vehicle is in Zinkwazi at least four times a week.
“The thing is people take out more garden refuse than what they are supposed to and at any day in the week. So even if you finish a particular road on a Monday, you may find on the Tuesday another house has taken out garden refuse on that road. We have tried to regulate this via the rate payers association but even they have failed,” said Gopi.
Latter said Gopi just talks and pointed out that a big heap of branches and other garden refuse has been collecting in Glen Drive since November and no one has made the effort to come and collect it.
“The place just looks really terrible and untidy,” said Latter.
