The angry Giovanni Natale, who has put his property on sale, said he found it disgusting that the city had failed to fix the trenches six months after they had dug up his pavement and damaged his garden in the process.
“I have been paying for my services, but the city officials don’t do their job. What is the point of paying if they don’t deliver. I am totally upset, this is disgusting. Something must be done quickly, this can affect the sale of my property. How can it take about six months for the city to fix this.”
Natale said he had gone to several departments trying to get the city to fix the problem, but with no luck.
“When they came here to dig, I asked them where were they coming from and one of the diggers told me that they were coming from Egoli Gas, but when I contacted the Egoli Gas, they knew nothing about the trench. I really don’t understand that no department from the city is willing to take the responsibility,” he quipped.
Natale added that he eventually contacted the councillor about three weeks back who promised to investigate the matter.
In his response Ward 32 councillor Steven Kruger said he was informed about the problem on the corner of James and George avenues a few weeks ago.
Kruger said, “I forwarded the complaint to urban management to investigate and resolve, and when I discussed it with them recently they had no idea what was happening there, and they had not been able to identify which department had done work there.” He said the reason that it was taking time to resolve was that the city had not been able to identify which department worked there.
“If they are unable to identify which department worked there, it will probably be up to Johannesburg Road Agency to eventually resolve the problem.” He advised the resident that ideal process would have been for the resident to report the problem via the call centre and get a reference number, and then follow up regularly.
