Cape Town - The Cape Coloured Congress (CCC) has lodged as formal complaint of negligence and waste of public funds over defective and sub-par staircases in disadvantaged communities on the Cape Flats.
The group has attempted to pressure the City to speed up fixing staircases posing safety risks to residents.
Where some staircases had collapsed, scaffolding was used as a temporary replacement, but the scaffolding remained months later, said the CCC’s Fadiel Adams.
He claimed engineering company Aurecon had deemed 135 staircases unsafe.
“We are laying charges of criminal negligence and a waste of public funds against the municipal manager, director of public housing and maintenance manager of public housing. I need SAPS to do their job to investigate, because the money was available. This is emergency money, but they didn’t spend it,” said Adams.
“They spent the money on things like window panes and putty and water proofing when there are staircases that are threatening to collapse.
“This spending pattern tells me there is a certain amount of corruption going on here, and that the mayor is covering for it.”
Adams filed a complaint at Cape Town Central police station on Tuesday.
City spokesperson Luthando Tyhalibongo said its housing department has spent close to R1 billion in maintenance and upgrades to its residential units including fixing and replacing staircases.
“The City has commenced with the urgent replacement of the 5 temporary staircases in Lavender Hill, Hanover Park, Parkwood and Manenberg as part of Phase 1 of its replacement programme, after the existing staircases collapsed during the implementation of the construction stage, of Phase 1 of the Major Upgrading of Rental Units Staircases Programme,” he said.
The City’s appointed consultants Aurecon Structural Engineers approved the temporary installations as temporary; however, not for prolonged usage. The health and safety of our residents is our priority,“ Tyhalibongo said.
Cape Argus