Ward councillors are not allowed to tell municipal entities what to do when there is a problem
Councillor Nicolene Jonker says they have no mandate to tell entities how to do their jobs. "We are not plumbers or electricians."
Councillors are not allowed to tell City of Johannesburg officials what to do or how to do their jobs. This is a legislated rule for various reasons, including trying to curb abuse of power and corruption.
During highly stressful times for residents – such as the times we are facing now with load-shedding, problems with water infrastructure, potholes and other ills – ward councillors are taking the brunt of frustration from communities.
Last year Seipati Nyawuza, spokesperson for Joburg Water said, “Councillors have no mandate to instruct our teams in any way, their role is to assist with escalating queries that have passed the standard turnaround time.”
Isaac Mangena, spokesperson for City Power concurred, “Councillors play an important liaison role between the community and City Power, ensuring that the messages from City Power – be it on outages, load-shedding, projects, educational campaigns and so on, reach communities who elected them. Also, that the concerns raised by communities on service delivery [or lack thereof] reach us.
“We strive every day to ensure we support councillors and empower them with information so that they can be able to respond to their constituencies on any issue regarding electricity service.”
Both Joburg Water and City Power said good working relationships with councillors were key and they understood the strain a lack of service delivery causes them and residents frustration during difficult times.
Ward 88 councillor Nicole Jonker added, “We are not plumbers or electricians so are unable to fix any problems ourselves. The best we can do is escalate problem calls and request they be attended to. We do oversight on projects, but we are not supposed to be involved in service delivery issues. Often though the situation is so dire that we do all we can to help. Every entity is so run down and broken that it is often not city officials’ fault that things don’t work as infrastructure is old and broken, and it will take billions and billions to fix. At times such as we are facing now with water, power and other problems, it can become overwhelming when residents contact you in the hopes of a resolution, but our hands are tied and we can’t offer the relief they deserve.
“At my public meeting last week, Johannesburg City Parks and Zoo, JMPD and JRA [the only ones that attended] all said they are understaffed, with those members they do have being pushed to their absolute limits. Some entities have even seen their own staff fixing their vehicles by themselves as they do their best to keep services running. That being said, they all remain committed to doing everything within their power to ensure residents get service delivery from municipal entities.”
