Unfinished municipal affairs leave city in shambles
A nagging issue which has been ongoing is that of incomplete work done by municipal workers after they have dug underground to repair water pipes due to leaks or bursts.
WARD 64 councillor Gavin Hegter has been inundated with queries and complaints regarding the collapsing state of service delivery in and around the ward.
A nagging issue which has been ongoing is that of incomplete work done by municipal workers after they have dug underground to repair water pipes due to leaks or bursts.
“While the response times for water faults have greatly improved, the problem we are now facing is the reinstatement of roads and sidewalks after excavation to repair water leaks. While it may be expected that the roads department attend to this, they cannot fix this because should they face challenges when digging the sand or have any trouble and end up damaging a pipe, then they will be blamed and refuse to take responsibility.
“The water department first needs to properly complete its job and cover holes with a crusher stone. Only then can the roads department come through to finish off the work and neaten it up, compact it and re-tar it. They cannot begin their part of the work if the water department doesn’t correctly complete their part of the job. 
“This issue is happening all over the ward and throughout the city. People need to start realising this. Some areas have been neglected for so long that there is grass and weeds growing. Some of them are neglected holes that haven’t been back filled in the middle of the road. Councillors are getting attacked by residents with complaints about the state of the area,” said Hegter.
In a thread of e-mails that the SUN has seen, the city confirmed that it doesn’t have a crusher stone to aid in back filling excavations.
“We had no crusher running for a period of two years as the water and sanitation department. This was due to supply chain management challenges that were beyond our control and this was escalated to the city manager. The contract was finally awarded in November last year, so we are dealing with a two-year backlog on this issue… We were using red sand to minimise the impact although it was not ideal material. It will assist us a great deal if you have urgent back fill jobs that you might feel have become compromised while we work through the back log,” reads a response from the thread.
“It took so long to get an honest answer from the department. I was however, informed that the roads department has just received a crusher stone, which will hopefully assist with this issue moving forward, should the relevant parties do their job sufficiently.
“The other issue is the failure to remove spoil from the excavations which, in many cases, obstructed sidewalks for months. We have this total collapse of various departments within the municipality. There are many issues but we are fighting continuously.
“Should residents report something and it is not dealt with, don’t just get upset and blame the councillor. I can guarantee that I have escalated most, if not all the problems in the ward. I ask that the community keeps me informed of the progress or the lack thereof. As a resident, you are dealing with one issue in your road, but as your councillor, I am dealing with 150 queries at once, very often these issues take months to be completely resolved. All is ask is that you come back to me and inform me of your report with your reference number and I will follow-up on it.”
For service delivery queries in ward 64, call councillor Gavin Hegter on 072-821-1917.
