Marcelle Ravid is one of the best councillors around

I read your front page article and was quite appalled.

As the head of a constituency that includes Marcelle Ravid as one of the councillors I wish to put it on record that she has a very strong record of service.

Indeed, she is one of the best councillors in the constituency. So, when I hear criticisms of her performance then naturally I think that criticism is not well informed. As a matter of fact, Marcelle works extraordinarily hard over very long hours.

Moreover, I have had numerous letters of thanks given to me for service she has provided.

Any suggestion that she doesn’t devote enough of her time to Orange Grove is also incorrect. From my perspective, she spends a greater proportion of her time servicing Orange Grove than she does in the rest of her ward.

One may question whether this effort has been effective. By all means Stanley Letsoalo is entitled to his opinion. But I’d like to let him and anyone else know that the role of a councillor is to be the mouthpiece of the community. A councillor does not have a team of workers assigned to him/her, nor are any other service delivery resources put at his/her disposal.

He/she is not the managing director of a service delivery operation in a ward. All service delivery is rendered through a massive organisation called the City of Johannesburg, headed by a mayor, whose name is Parks Tau. All that a councillor can do is ask or demand. The best thing a community can do is to add their voices in support of the councillor’s.

But the worst aspect of Letsoalo’s article is the suggestion that people should “make the ward ungovernable”. This is an assault on democracy and the country’s Constitution. As a result I will report Letsoalo to the Human Rights Commission. I expect the ANC to support me in my submission to the commission.