‘Concerned Ekurhuleni resident’ has their say regarding the City’s plan to rename some streets:
I read with utter shock in the Springs Advertiser of last week that the municipality intends to rename a substantial number of our streets.
I have no objection to honouring the struggle stalwarts, some of whom are known to me.
The mother of one of the struggle icons of Tsakani died in poverty.
The young boy could have been honoured by the municipality by looking after her rather than naming a street after her son.
I really wonder whether the municipal officials have in the current economic climate considered the cost both to the municipality and to business.
I know the response would be that the cost was budgeted for.
Whether it was or not, that money could be better used to buy diesel for refuse trucks and vehicle permits.
The whole municipality is littered with dirty streets, street lights that are not working, sewage is all over our streets, our cemeteries are an eyesore, the surroundings of the Springs city hall have overgrown grass, just to name a few things that are in a state of disrepair.
I do not even mention the conditions in our Ekurhuleni residential areas.
Mr Mayor, drive around Kwa-Thema, Tsakani and Duduza, you won’t allow your children to roam around in these areas.
You must be living in an estate and the rest of us who live in the townships live in filthy conditions.
You pride yourself on Ekurhuleni having received a clean audit from the auditor-general.
A clean audit does not translate into refuse removal.
Is there any consequence management in Ekurhuleni?
I read two weeks ago in the Advertiser about the refuse that is not being collected.
To my surprise, the municipality came with the lame excuse that the temporary contract of the company that was collecting refuse had expired and you hope to finalise a new contract by the end of June. What a shame.
When did your officials know the contract was going to expire? Have you heard of lead time?
Surely, an efficient and effective municipality should have started to source a new service provider long before the expiry of that contract?
Was this oversight because your officials were focusing on street names and not what matters on the ground?
I was born during apartheid, I grew up and fought apartheid.
Perhaps then, the enemy was visible.
It was white.
Now it seems the enemy is no longer visible because it is of the same colour, it lives among us, it is within us and we do not see it.
Please, focus on what matters, what affects us daily and not what you want for the votes in October.
Listen to us.
Democracy is the government of the people by the people, for the people.
Democracy should not be top down but bottom up.
We cannot be silenced by vanity projects, we want service delivery.
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