For the past couple of months, the metro has been unable to fix the broken lifts at the Boksburg Civic Centre, leading to big frustration and forcing workers and the public to climb up seven flights of stairs to ascend and descend the seven-storey building.
Even those that are working have already been compromised by lack of maintenance and are most likely to also become dysfunctional as they are now being overused.
According to an insider, who asked to remain anonymous, a contractor (Sigma) previously appointed to maintain the lifts had turned its back on the property because its maintenance contract has expired. So staff and the public are now using the remaining lifts at their peril.
With most of the civic centre building’s ageing lifts that are falling apart and often breaking down, personnel and the public often wait for a long time for a lift, thereby resorting to using the staircases to proceed to their various work stations.
Ward councillor Marius de Vos has expressed concern about the status quo, saying the metro needs to figure out a way to urgently deal with the problem. According to de Vos, the four lifts have been out of service since late last year, and it appears that they will remain like that for months.
De Vos said the months of delays in fixing the four lifts has caused suffering and is greatly inconveniencing the many workers and members of the public, especially elderly residents who are forced to contend with climbing up the staircases or wait a long time for the remaining lifts located right at the end of the building in order to reach the municipal offices on the building’s upper floors.
“For staff and the public alike, having only three working elevators here is a huge inconvenience, especially for those working on the building’s upper floors. Repeated calls to have the municipality fix the lifts seem to have fallen on deaf ears,” said de Vos.
Slow tender process delays maintenance
The councillor told this journalist that he spoke to officials at the civic centre and they told him they have been engaging with management for the last six months regarding the damaged lifts and management has made commitments‚ but nothing has happened to date.
During the Advertiser’s visit to the civic centre, an insider, who also wished to remain anonymous, confirmed that officials at the centre have been following up on the issue since then, and have only received vague replies from management.
Another source said employees were, early this year, told the tender process for a new contractor to fix or replace the ageing lifts would take about six months.
Woman trapped in civic centre lifts
The Advertiser’s investigation into the lifts has also revealed that at least one employee, a woman, was lucky to escape unhurt after she was trapped in one of the now broken lifts when it stopped working in January, causing an ordeal likened to a horror film scene. Fire service personnel were called to the civic centre and they managed to manually prise the lift open to free the victim.
The Advertiser approached the metro for clarity on the matter, but no comment was received at the time of going to press.
Malfunction of lifts in council-owned buildings in the metro is widespread
The problems faced at the civic centre are not unique and highlight a general problem in council-owned buildings across Ekurhuleni.
This includes the elderly citizens at Andries Scribante Haven in Cason, who, despite multiple promises by the municipality, have since 2017 been left without lifts to get to and from their flats in the multi-storey building.
The metro cited a similar issue of appointing a contractor as one of the reasons for the delays in replacing the lifts at Andries Scribante Haven.
Read: Still no solution to the Andries Scribante lifts dilemma
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