The ward councillor is not supposed to be a replacement for a reporting system for service delivery failure.
This was reason for the motion DA councillor, Estelle Visser, handed in at the February meeting of Ekurhuleni Metro Municipality.
This motion was not approved and the matter would not be pursued further by the municipality, even though Visser stressed that calls were still not answered at the call centre.
This decision not to pursue the matter was made after Phelisa Nkunyana, ANC member of the mayoral committee for corporate and shared services, commented on Visser’s motion, saying the metro had systems in place to make the call centre work.
The metro, through many avenues, as well as appointing personnel to man the call centre, did everything in its power to establish it properly. They, amongst others, gave standards to the call centre by drafting a customer service charter and also established a customer care department.
Visser, on the other hand, felt the restructuring of the call centre, that was supposed to provide an efficient reporting service, was taking far too long and hampering service delivery.
She said paying residents of Ekurhuleni had the right to demand an acceptable standard of service delivery, as well as being able to report service delivery problems with an effective and efficient reporting system. Residents also had the right to expect the problem to be solved within a reasonable period.
She also said the municipality, after 13 years, also still did not have a telephone system with answering machines for message-taking.
