Councillors in Region F have pleaded with the City of Johannesburg to spread resources equally on service delivery matters in wards. This emerged during the Ward Councillors’ Forum meeting on Wednesday, 15 March 2023. Delivering opening remarks, the Member of the Mayoral Committee (MMC) for Environment and Infrastructure Services Department in the City of Johannesburg, Cllr Jack Sekwaila, said the issues of projects being stopped or removed from the capex list without any explanation was a problem for councillors, who are always on the ground with communities.
MMC Sekwaila said officials should explain these issues clearly. Region F was the face of the City as most people arrive in the region before moving to other areas.
“We have launched the war on waste campaign with the objective of overhauling the inner city. We have seen the visibility of JMPD officers especially at night to address lawlessness, which is rampant at night,” said Cllr Sekwaila.
Most councillors bemoaned the precarious position they found themselves in when working with communities and the various unattended service delivery issues in their wards, including a high theft and vandalism of traffic lights, potholes on every street, vagrancy in parks and a high number of homeless people and the erecting of illegal of structures all over the region, high number of illegal water and electricity connections, illegal spaza shops, illegal buildings, cable theft and unreliable water supply.
Other raised concerns were about the monitoring of water levels at reservoirs, updates from most entities were non-existent and there was no emergency planning on most challenges being faced.
All echoed the sentiments that some entities were not communicating and could take a leaf from entities who provide updates continuously.
Irene Mafune, the Region F’s Regional Director, said the weekly multi-disciplinary service delivery operations were reaching most wards and the plan was to continuously maximise efforts to heighten services delivery in the region.
“Given the glaring issues that are persistent such as illegal dumping, and urban decay around the region, Citizen Relationship and Urban Management (CRUM) has been conducting inspections in different wards to assess the challenges and coming up with mitigation factors,” added Mafune.
Written by Dudu Lushaba
15/03/2023