Protesters decide next steps after city ignores peaceful protests
A petition will be delivered soon to the office of the premier to take steps to improve service delivery or face rates boycott.
Residents of Ward 88 and beyond are taking their frustrations at lack of service delivery to another level after the city ignored their pleas.
They peacefully protested twice in numbers bemoaning sustained power outages post load-shedding, deteriorating road surface quality, water issues and other municipal ills.
Michael O’Donovan, one of the spokespersons for the group, said, “Our protests were totally ignored, so we are ramping up the pressure.”
A petition to Premier Panyasa Lesufi is currently being drafted. Their request will be for a S138 to be imposed, which will allow the municipality to be placed under administration.
This the group says is a maturation of processes that started with peaceful protest to give voice to their dissatisfaction.
“This will mean they are held accountable not by the executive mayor, but by an appointed administrator to help get the city back onto a sound administrative and financial footing. The principal is like when a company is placed on business rescue,” explains O’Donovan.
The petition will be publicly handed to Lesufi in the coming weeks.
They say it will have a firm deadline to which the city must respond with an action plan to increase performance or submit to being placed under administration.
“Failing this, we will take it a step further and request residents across the city to join us in a rates holiday,” said Jusuf Dadabhay.
The group claims there is enough support for this in the ward and believes others across the city are frustrated enough to join them.
“If we get enough people to withhold their municipal payments for a month. We believe this will have a massive impact and will tell the city how widespread frustrations and anger at a lack of service delivery across the board is,” said O’Donovan.
Dadabhay said, “The constitution is not being adhered to or enforced. We as citizens must hold local government accountable or our plight will only get worse.”
A total rates boycott is not off the table should there be no improvement in services and if the city is unwilling to engage with them.
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Ward 88 residents protest lack of service delivery and corruption
