Marlboro Gardens residents frustrated over poor service delivery.

Marlboro Gardens residents have raised concerns over infrastructural dilapidation along Zinnia Drive that’s negatively impacting their quality of living as a community.
Resident Farouk Mohamed complained about the challenges encountered when trying to get the Johannesburg Roads Agency (JRA) and Johannesburg Water (JW) more active in servicing their community.
Mohamed said they have reported blocked stormwater drains on Zinnia Drive to JRA.

Read more: Teamwork between JW and JRA on Achter Road

“JRA has passed this on to JW,” he claimed. “If both are not willing to do their job, then inform me to not waste another’s time. This water is unhygienic and stinks and probably has sewage in it. We breathe this daily and people and cars walk and drive over this.
“Our community is going through a difficult time at the moment with regards to service delivery, and the infrastructure is coming down around us. The situation seems hopeless.”

JRA and JW were contacted for comment on September 5, and Ward 109 councillor Lori Coogan on September 6.

Also read: JW and JRA pass the ball around over Bryanston Pothole

The JRA, on September 11, responded to an enquiry into what their plan is for encouraging community members in Malrboro Gardens to not feel as though they have been forgotten; what challenges the entity has encountered n serving the Marlboro communities; and what the plan is for tackling the situation on Zinnia Drive. JRA’s head of regional operations Khayalethu Gqibitole said that the entity has an acting regional operations manager who is responible for stakeholder engagement in each region, who deals with service issues.

“Furthermore, there is a designated JRA Inspector that assesses issues in and around Marlboro by doing proactive and reactive inspections,” said Gqibitole. “The depot is also undertaking proactive measures for storm water drainage and kerb inlet cleaning in preparation of the rainy season.”

Gqibitole also said that the illegal disposal of sewerage into stormwater drainage systems is one of the challenges JRA teams are facing on the ground.

“This includes the stormwater inlets in Marlboro and along Zinnia Drive; there are mobile toilets there that also illegally discharge into stormwater structures, which is the incorrect discharge point, in addition to the raw sewer discharging onto and damaging the road surface,” Gqibitol reported. “Our JRA teams are not trained to work with sewerage, and the discharge creates problems requiring Jet Vac systems, and the very next day after clearing, the system is blocked up with sewer again.”

The situation on Zinnia Drive, which has seven to eight kerb inlets, according to Gqibitole, may take time without the assistance of JW on site.

“Its an ongoing process since we are also liaising with our Sister entity JW to assist with clearing the sewer blockages in the area,” Gqibitole concluded. “JRA recently started with the programme of cleaning the kerb inlets using a Jet Vac system.”

JW responded on September 10, requesting logged reference details from the community raising their concerns through the appropriate channels, which were supplied to them on that day.

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