Ward 101 councillor Dalu Cele writes:
I wish the residents and their loved ones in Ward 101 a safe and peaceful festive season.
In 2019, we hope to win the Gauteng province during the 2019 National and Provincial Elections as the DA so that improved service delivery will be felt through the province. In Ward 101, I wish to continue to work closely with the community to continue the great work we are doing in ensuring that Ward 101 is a safe and clean environment to live, work and play.
First, I would like to congratulate the efforts made by the community at the Golden Harvest Park and the Old Municipal Nursery.
This is through their daily patrol initiative. The community members have successfully chased away drug dealers that were trading along Olivenhout Avenue in Northwold, which is right outside of the Old Municipal Nursery.
I would also like to thank the support and sponsorship that was made by Ingelosi Security Solutions by donating batons, pepper sprays and visibility vests to the patrol team.
I am pleased to advise that the physical verification of residents at the park and the nursery has been completed. This work started on the weekend of 2 and 3 December 2017, led by the Department of Housing.
This work was finally completed during the weekend of 22 and 23 September 2018.
Some of the lowlights included a power outage that lasted for over 46 hours during the Easter long weekend that affected Bromhof, Sonneglans, parts of Boskruin and Strijdom Park.
This was one the longest service delivery failures I have witnessed to date, however, the issue has been stabilised now and the supply is stable. A public meeting was held on the 28 May at the Sharonlea Primary School to address the power outages.
We were advised that the reasons for the extended power outages during the Easter long weekend were as follows:
- There was a line that snipped, running from a substation feeding the Hawken Switching Station.
- There were two cables (approximately 300m) that were stolen in the tunnel that supplies the above suburbs.
- The above two issues made it difficult for City Power to restore power via the back-feed line, hence the extended power outage.
- In addition to the above, batteries were stolen from the Hawken Switching Station. As a result, that made the station vulnerable with no protection should there be a fault, which could have led to the station to blow.