Durban - Irate Durban residents waited for hours on Friday to pay their municipal bills because eThekwini Municipality staff had taken the day off to attend a Women’s Day event.
Newlands West resident Sibonakaliso Msane was at the Florence Mkhize (formerly Martin West) building in the CBD and was among the dozens of angry people waiting to pay their bills.
“There were long, snaking queues in the building. I talked to people in the queue and they said they had been waiting for hours. They felt that the municipality was taking them for granted,” he said.
He said out of the more than 20 counters that were supposed to be operational, only four were manned.
When Msane asked why this was the case, a supervisor informed him that the majority of the staff had left for the day to attend a Women’s Day event hosted by the municipality.
A Backchatter also complained to the Daily News, saying: “All the women working for the eThekwini Municipality were at Moses Mabhida Stadium on Friday to celebrate Women’s Day.
“There is nothing wrong with that, but the problem is that service delivery was affected.
“Why didn’t the municipality choose a Sunday when most public offices are closed? What message is the management sending to its employees?
“Celebrations are more important than service delivery. Day by day we are becoming a banana republic.”
The Daily News sent questions to the municipality about the long queues and lack of staff and a video of the empty service counters at the Florence Mkhize building.
However, these questions were not addressed in the city’s response.
Mandla Nsele, the deputy head of communications, said: “As a caring city, eThekwini Municipality has a dedicated team of staff members who strive to provide superior service to all residents. Service delivery remains our key priority.”
He said the type of queries being handled at the various customer services varied, and because of this they could take time to resolve.
“The municipality is attending to customers at the various centres across the municipality and staff are working as quickly as possible to resolve customer queries.”
The Daily News had previously reported on the lengthy periods people had to wait when calling in about complaints such as electricity faults.
The Daily News reported that one caller was on hold for 28 minutes before an operator from the Electricity Contact Centre responded.
Numerous Backchatters complained to the Daily News about the long time being kept on hold, waiting to be helped.