Municipality, ratepayers work together for better service delivery

The eThekwini Municipality is on a drive to get ratepayers on board with them to work together to achieve better service delivery. On Friday (September 15) the municipality leaders met with the Phoenix Ratepayers Association.

eThekwini Mayor Mxolisi Kaunda and Speaker of Council Thabani Nyawose met with the eThekwini Ratepayers’ and Residents’ Associations in Phoenix. The associations represent areas such as Chatsworth, Clare Estate, Queensburgh, Reservoir Hills, Phoenix and Verulam.

The overarching message by the mayor was that: “eThekwini belongs to all of us, and we need to make it work. We know that some of the issues won’t be fixed overnight. The time to forge partnership is now to resolve the challenges facing our residents.”

Among the issues raised by the residents included ageing infrastructure, refuse collection, and water and electricity outages. The municipality has set up teams of plumbers to fix water leaks and sewer spillages, often caused by the abuse of sewer infrastructure, said Mr Kaunda.

Mr Nyawose stressed the importance of ward councillors holding regular community meetings to listen and respond to the complaints of the community timeously.

The municipality is currently locked in a dispute with the Westville Ratepayers’ Association (WRA) with whom it has not been able to reach a resolution on service delivery issues. The WRA are withholding municipal rates payments until the city meets their demands related to poor service delivery and dilapidated infrastructure.

WRA chairman Asad Gaffar said earlier this year that the money owed to the municipality would be placed in a trust pending their demands. The municipality met with the WRA on Thursday August 10, but they have not come to a resolution. The WRA has a court interdict against the municipality and the matter will be heard in the Durban High Court on Wednesday November 1.

Following this Mr Kaunda made a commitment to intervene in service delivery challenges raised by the Phoenix Ratepayers’ Association. He also said at the end of the engagements with ratepayers, that the city would attach service delivery champions to each association who would intervene when such matters arose.

“This will be supported by the new zonal service delivery model which entails the clustering of wards and adequate allocation of staff that will fix service delivery complaints promptly. The city has also prioritised the budget to purchase jetting machines to address the challenges of sewer spillages. Recently, we have unveiled a new fleet of grass cutting tractors to clear overgrown verges and to keep our parks clean,” said Mr Kaunda.

Furthermore, he said, the issue of environmental design is critical in fighting crime. Therefore, the city must ensure that it keeps all street lights on and make roads traversable in suburbs, townships and rural communities.