Merebank councillor challenges city’s response to urban forestry issues

IN response to complaints related to urban forest challenges and overgrown verges, eThekwini Municipality recently announced plans to set up a special rapid response team to tackle the issue.

The team is said to function as a supporting unit to the Department of Parks, Recreation and Culture (PRC).

Head of the eThekwini Municipality PRC unit, Thembinkosi Ngcobo, admitted that there had been delays in pruning trees, removing fallen trees and cutting of verges in residential areas across the city.

The team was created to fast-track a response to public reports and to eliminate complaints about verges remaining uncut for too long. The special unit is not taking away from the city’s routine maintenance work. Ngcobo said that the team instead seeks to improve service delivery by providing a quick and efficient complaints resolution service to citizens. The unit would also attend to overhanging and fallen branches obstructing motorists and pedestrians, clean up fallen leaves, service the parks based playground equipment and remove illegal adverts.

As a result, long delays for tree pruning, removing fallen trees and other parks related issues would be reduced. The team will be supporting 10 districts across the city in addressing easy community complaints and resolving backlogs swiftly.

However, ward 75 PR councillor, Sthembiso Ngema has challenged the viability of this specialised unit and the city’s approach to a prolonged issue. With areas such as Lylapur Road and Himalayas Road Park in Merebank, which have been long neglected, Ngema said he had questions as to whether this approach would be effective in practice.

“Why do we have to wait until things are beyond control to set something like this up? How is this team going to work? How long are they going to work? Where is the budget for this come from? Who will manage it?

“In as much as we welcome this initiative, this department has always been questionable and is failing dismally in the very basic service that ratepayers have been paying for. This casts a poor reflection on this leadership and its management skills. An important concern is the implementation and turnaround time which is predicted to be within two days of receiving a complaint. The PRC department is struggling with its current budgeting. The lack of equipment and human resource which stifling service delivery, is evidence of that.

“This begs the questions of how will this new team cure the dismal service delivery failure and current backlog? How will this additional equipment needed be funded and at what cost? Aren’t we going to see another irregular expenditure when we implement this task team? What will the parks department staff do when the task team is responding to complaints?” questioned Ngema who suggested that funds instead be injected directly into the PRC.

“Children are playing on the road because the parks are filthy. Today residents fear spaces that were meant for leisure and social activities because criminals can hide easily in the bushes. People have complaints of neglected parks, overgrown grass and verges all the time throughout the city, whether you head south or north the issue is the same. eThekwini has decided not to take care of parks and now they are trying to manage something that they did not measure.”

EThekwini Municipality’s Spokesperson Msawakhe Mayisela response:

How exactly is this team going to work?

• The Rapid Response Team will attend to urgent jobs/complains e.g. Fallen trees on the roadside, picking up loads of branches offloaded on pavements by unknown customers, working together with law enforcement in removing unauthorised advertisements on roadside.
• Pruning tree branches hanging on the private property’s boundaries / covering street poles lights, removing tree shootings.
• All complaints will be recorded per district and have a reference number. The Horticulturist / Manager will select jobs that must be given to their depot teams and allocate jobs to the Rapid Response Team to be resolved.

How long are they going to work?

There is presently only one team across the City intended to be a pilot project to assess the model’s success and output capacity to undertake and remove backlogs in all the Districts. Presently, the team is operating in only 5 Districts across the City for a 6-month trial period, after which the assessment and evaluation will be made to increase across all the Districts and to increase the number of teams required.  

Where is the budget for this special team going to come from?

• There have been no additional resources allocated to this team, only the acquisition of the specialised vehicle to undertake tree trimming and basic tree pruning.  The existing budget and staff from within have been selected who have the requisite skills and who can act independently to resolve complaints timeously.
• The team consist of people with skills, experience with the aim of reducing cost and minimising the outsource of jobs.

Who will manage it?

• The team is under the supervisor of the Senior Manager – who assigns from the Districts, the longest and/or most urgent jobs to undertake across the Districts
• There is a superintendent who is responsible for organising and undertaking the jobs,   

• The Parks Complaints Management System process needs to be followed, with the public continuing to log their complaints/faults on our Complaints Management System which will provide a reference number. The Senior Manager and the District Managers will assign jobs for the Team to undertake and close off each week and each day as they occur.
• All complaints sent to him through an internal system (Complain Management System). The team will record all resolved complaints.
• The team consist of staff with different skills and are able to attend to most challenges in a short time-service delivery improvement.

How will this new team cure the dismal service delivery failure by the parks department and the current backlog?

• The Rapid Response Team is attending to urgent minor complaints within 24 hours from different depots as per complaints in writings through internal process e.g. complain management system with reference numbers. Any major job is referred to the depot team or recommend to be outsourced.
• It attends to old reported minor complaints and refer major jobs to depots or recommend that some complaints be outsourced.