Residents raise service delivery concerns with Cachalia

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DA ward 22 councillor Benno Robinson hosted his mayoral hopeful and local ward candidates at a breakfast at the Afrique Boutique Hotel.

Cachalia fielded questions after he had addressed the audience regarding his party’s plans should he become mayor following the August 3 elections.

Derek Fox, president of the Boksburg Chamber of Commerce and Industries, brought it to the DA’s attention that winning elections is one thing, but keeping the peace thereafter is a different animal altogether.

He asked what the DA will do to keep peace should they win the elections, and also how deeply they are prepared to cut in terms of removing “the systemic and endemic corruption that is right at the core of all our municipalities in South Africa”.

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Cachalia thanked Fox for raising a “pertinent question” and acknowledged that winning a battle is important, but winning the peace thereafter is more important.

He said they have plans in place to carefully, surgically and wisely deal with the problems, and will also be taking advice.

One businessman in the vicinity of Unilever raised concerns with a contractor who has been working on a road in that area for about two months now.

“I pass there every morning and the guys are just lying on their backs. When is the work ever being done? Who is paying for all of this?” he asked.

The businessman said the contractor has thrown a slab of concrete which, he said, takes 28 days to cure.

“Should they [the workers] not move elsewhere in the meantime, rather than having them sit there, disturbing traffic on a daily basis for 28 days while waiting for the slab to cure?” he asked.

This particular businessman is of the opinion that “if everyone in government did a full day’s work, this country would be booming”.

Cachalia promised to inspect the road after the meeting, adding that “it is just a crisis of mismanagement and corruption which is fixable with the will”.

A woman, who has been living in Villa Liza for 25 years and who wishes to remain anonymous, said there has been very little development.

“Only recently we received a clinic, but, considering all the old people we have there, I think we need 24 hour service,” she explained.

“The treatment by staff is also not good; people stand in long queues and endure the hot and cold weather.”

She added that there was lack of facilities for the youth and that people litter at will.

Cachalia said he is aware of her problems.

“I have seen it across all the wards that I visited in Ekurhuleni – the metro has chosen to forget people, however, we have solutions for these problems and, when we are in power, we will change this.”

A Dawn Park resident complained about experiencing power outages every weekend and wanted to know if this was load shedding or a problem with the metro or Eskom.

Councillor for that ward, Bruce Reid, said the biggest problem is illegal power connections and cable theft.

A complaint also arose that it takes the metro up to three years to approve indigents.

Reid, however, said the process should take only three months.

Explaining the hiccoughs, he said the health workers who are supposed to conduct the actual inspection on indigent households are not doing their job.

“They get paid a mere R10 per inspection so, at times, they wait to have more clients in a certain area before they can actually travel there,” he added.

“At times they don’t even go, but claim the R10, and this leads to applications remaining in the system for a longer period.”