Ward 74 councillor shares 200-day experience

Ward 74 councillor Belinda Echeozonjoku writes:

It’s been more than 200 days in office and what a journey it has been.
When I became the Ward 74 ward councillor in November last year, it only later dawned on me that I now had 22 suburbs that need my equal attention. I had no choice but to hit the ground running, dealing with issues that had been there for months, while others had been there for years, it’s now my role to ensure that things in the ward get fixed.

Commitments and positives

• Committed to being available at all reasonable times to the residents of the ward through the creation of clustered service delivery WhatsApp groups.
• Have seen an improvement in the response time of water outages through the above as I have been able to escalate to the relevant entities once residents do not get responses within reasonable times.
• Many streetlights that have not worked for months have been repaired in various areas.
• Committed to working with all residents to preserve our environment; clean rivers and public spaces and safe parks for everyone to enjoy.
• After almost seven years of battling with illegal recyclers along Scott Street in Waverley, with the help of City of Johannesburg’s Citizen Relationship and Urban Management, our ward urban inspector and residents’ associations, I have been able to motivate and get at least three integrated operations to remove the illegal recycling out of the park.
• Integrated Clean Up Operation at Hillson Street Park I requested resulted in the park being cleaned and fenced by residents.
• Attended at least one Community Police Forum meeting, Melrose Residents Association annual general meeting and Waverley Residents Association meeting.
• Have had very productive park adoptions in the ward such as the Waverley residents who adopted Crawford Park.

Supported initiatives

• One of the reasons I support my residents in their request for road closures is that unfortunately, with load-shedding, safety had been a concern and a reality as residents have been paying for security companies directly.
• Also pleased to be able to support the request by the Parks Alliance, James and Ethel Gray Park Foundation and VumaCam to pilot the Smart Hoods, Safer Hoods programme in Ward 74 subject to all necessary agreements with City entities being in place. This will assist with quicker response times from law enforcement which will reduce crime, and combat cable theft and infrastructure vandalism in our ward.
• The Augmented Field Services currently operating in the ward has dealt with litter in the different hotspots synonymous with illegal dumping.
• Contractors use the voters roll to ensure labourers and Small Medium and Micro Enterprises (SMMEs) of Ward 74 get opportunities from government projects.

Some challenges

We had unfortunate incidents with unscrupulous business forums where SMMEs and jobseekers from outside our ward tried to stop projects in the ward. I am very grateful that, fortunately, with the help of two station commanders of Norwood SAPS, this was nipped in the bud before it got out of hand.

Unfortunately, we are still having major issues with lengthy power outages after load-shedding. I am trying to facilitate a public meeting with residents and City Power.

We also still have problems with Johannesburg Roads Agency (JRA) with a long list of outstanding issues. This list had been sent to the MMC for Transport via the office of the executive mayor. Subsequently, the new CEO of JRA has come to the ward to work on some of the issues.

Residents have also raised concerns about the slow response times from the Johannesburg Metropolitan Police Department (JMPD). I have subsequently been advised by MMC David Tembe that an additional 64 JMPD officers have been deployed to Region E.

We also have seen the unfortunate incidences of illegal gambling, illegal spaza shops and other illegal land use, illegal building and roadside mechanics in the Kew and Bramley areas. I am keeping a close eye on this and soon there will be integrated operations working with SAPS and other law enforcement including Home Affairs to ensure that we rebuild our ward as we do our city.

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