Durban – EThekwini Municipality met with ratepayers from Musgrave, Overport, Sydenham and Asherville on Friday to improve service delivery in these areas.
The meeting, which was led by Durban mayor Mxolisi Kaunda, discussed issues relating to faulty street lights, reduction in water and electricity outages, road infrastructure maintenance, sewerage and stormwater challenges, safety, security, vagrancy, parks and waste collection.
In a statement following the meeting, the City said the municipality has forged a partnership with ratepayers from these areas in order to improve service delivery rendered to residents.
During the meeting, Kaunda committed to prioritising the issues that were raised in order to address bottlenecks that frustrate the delivery of services to residents.
“We are turning the tide to improve service delivery by structuring wards according to zones and bringing service delivery closer to residents. We will put systems in place to drive the zonal service delivery model more effectively. This will also address long turnaround times in attending to the service delivery complaints logged with the City,” he said.
However, the mayor acknowledged that Sydenham has an issue with drugs.
He said he was engaging with police to conduct intelligence-driven operations to respond to issues of crime effectively.
“Having analysed that the Metro Police in the city are overstretched, we are employing 400 Metro Police officers annually. The six-month training for the incoming officers starts in November. We have also budgeted R110 million to fix defective outdoor surveillance cameras in an effort to ensure the safety of residents. While enforcing by-laws is critical, we are also galvanising the community to stop buying stolen goods because this practice increases the market for criminals,” said Kaunda.
The mayor was grateful for the manner in which ratepayers have articulated their issues.
“You recognise all the calamities the city has endured after the recent flood disasters where over 100 power stations were washed away. But we are happy to report that they were immediately fixed.
“We are serious about delivering services, but lazy and incompetent employees will have their salaries docked. We are tightening our control measures so that ratepayers get value for money. We need to further deliberate on the issues raised, and we will meet again soon to provide a detailed plan of action regarding the concerns you have raised,” he said.
Kaunda also said sewerage issues must be urgently attended to. He said what residents needed was proactive City officials.
“The ratepayers highlighted that the basis of the engagement with the City is to forge a partnership and not to table a memorandum of grievances or legal documents. They also said they have no intentions to boycott the payment of rates but wanted to work with the City,” said the statement.
‘The Mercury’ reported last week that ratepayers led by the Westville Ratepayers’ Association (WRA) have withheld R1.2 million in payments meant to be paid to the eThekwini Municipality for services, as part of a campaign to boycott rates. The money has instead been deposited into a trust account.
In a statement on Wednesday, the City advised residents that there is no court interdict that has been granted by any court of law preventing the municipality from disconnecting services to those boycotting payments.