Communities where residents help the city fare better than without

Active citizenship is an integral part of any society, and with elections drawing near, residents may be scrutinising how much local government does for them, and how much of the slack is being picked up by community members.

“Local citizenry and local government structures which include city entities and public representatives have to work hand in hand. When this does not happen it causes disunity and further hampers service delivery. The solution to alleviating some of the service delivery issues is when these two groups collaborate. It is often easy to see the differences when looking at different wards when these groups are at odds with each other and when public representatives do not hold city entities to account,” says Ward 98 councillor Beverley Jacobs.

She says this concept teaches and highlights the rights and responsibilities of citizens which sees NPOs and Residents Associations (RAs) being an integral part of a well-functioning society.

“The current widening deficit of the government to provide taxpayers with the services the government is mandated to provide means that residents need to become part of active citizenship. In an economy that has produced financial fatigue, one can assist by volunteering time to such organisations. Another part of active citizenship is understanding and researching the type of government you want because civil society and government need to find common ground as NPOs and RAs still rely on government entities to aid their initiatives.”

As elections draw near, the Northcliff Melville Times looked at how some city entities are performing in its footprint. Some residents and business owners may feel that their experience of service delivery is far below optimal but it might when compared to many other areas they are faring better than may be expected.

Driving around areas like Fairland, Northcliff and surrounds, when compared to suburbs nearby like Corronationville, Westbury, Jan Hofmeyer and others, it is clear that local volunteers are making a concerted effort to keep the area clean, are trying to make public parks safe and enjoyable for people to visit and there is a strong community spirit.

City of Johannesburg spokesperson Nthatisi Modingoane says less-than-ideal service delivery is mostly linked to financial constraints. “So many poor service delivery struggles are linked to budget constraints and rising costs of bulk services. For example, the budget that Joburg Water requires to refurbish all the pipes is more than the city’s available budget. The budget has to be divided among all the critical services which continue to be delivered. The city is working tirelessly to explore measures to increase resources required to effectively fund operations.

“The city strives to deliver high-quality and reliable services to all residents, with a particular emphasis on historically underserved areas, and work to reduce waste and improve efficiency. The city is looking to develop programmes and initiatives to encourage citizen participation in government decision-making, and co-producing service delivery, including community-based planning meetings, participatory budgeting, and improved feedback mechanisms.”

While there are undoubtedly some areas experiencing chronic adverse service delivery at higher levels than others, it seems this patch of the city is fairing better on the surface than many others.

Some service delivery shortfalls are of a nature that is difficult for communities to assist. The provision of electricity and water are two examples.

When it comes to water, some houses on Second Avenue in Westdene, for example, have had virtually no water piped into their homes for months on end.

The Water Crisis Committee, a group of activists and scientists, was formed late last year to compel Johannesburg Water (JW) to improve water services across the metro. They have exposed several areas in the city that are without water for days, weeks or months at a time. A meeting with the mayor for his input is finally being held at the time of going to print.

This journalist travelled to Lorentzville to attend one of their strategy sessions in the east of the city and saw first-hand how far some suburbs have collapsed along the route.

Johannesburg Water says it remains committed to its mandate of providing a sustainable supply of water and sanitation services to the residents and businesses of the City of Johannesburg. The entity continues to prioritise and make every effort possible to alleviate water supply challenges and improve the lives of its customers through the provision of water and sanitation services.

Electricity supply is no doubt hampered by Eskom through load-shedding, but City Power on top of that has its fair share of problems to contend with. There are several suburbs which are notorious for enduring almost predictable power outages following load-shedding.

City Power’s Isaac Mangena explains some common problems with fulfilling its mandate to supply quality electricity to the residents of Johannesburg.

“We take this responsibility seriously as we are aware that our customers rely on electricity to run their households, businesses and other services which are of importance. Though we do our best to ensure that we restore supply to our customers post-load-shedding, in some instances we are unable to immediately do so due to system trips. The electricity infrastructure was not designed for load-shedding which requires that the equipment be switched on and off. This affects the lifespan of the equipment itself and additionally leads to system failures during the supply restoration process. The wear and tear of the network also increases during load-shedding. Furthermore, during load-shedding, little or no planned maintenance is done, this has an impact on the existing network which may in the long run fail. For the safety of our employees and contractors, repairs and supply restoration cannot be conducted during load-shedding, and this leads to prolonged outages.”

Related Article: The impact of collaboration cannot be understated