Reasons why we’ll have to fix potholes ourselves
"I was inundated with reports from fed-up citizens from all over Vanderbijlpark. It became quite clear that many of the streets in Emfuleni have now become impassable and dangerous to use" - Emfuleni Councillor Phillip Nothnagel
Mr Phillip Nothnagel, Councillor for Emfuleni Local Municipality’s Ward 5, writes:
I would like to thank all the residents who took the time to report potholes in and around Ward 5 to me.
The sad story of bad maintenance by ELM has a long history. On 28 October 2015 the Gauteng Premier David Makhura, held a meeting with a number of concerned citizens in Vanderbijlpark as part of the Gauteng Ntirhisano (a collaborative service delivery system) Road Show. People were excited and looked forward to all the positive changes that the premier promised that were going to take place in Vanderbijlpark based on the commitments he made. It is quite clear that Emfuleni Local Municipality is unable or unwilling to fulfilling their responsibility to provide service delivery to the residents of Vanderbijlpark.
Various community meetings were held to discuss the matter of bad service delivery. A clear conclusion emanating from these mee-tings is that it is time for the Emfuleni residents and taxpayers to align all their resources, energy and time to hold ELM to account, even if it means to take the Municipality to Court.
Some of the most serious problems identified at all meetings were potholes and the lack of road maintenance. The problems regarding potholes are reaching crisis proportions. A number of very serious accidents have been caused due to people trying to avoid potholes. Road maintenance is also not done. The state of the roads is so bad that it scares off potential investors and visitors to ELM. The Ward 5 committee therefore deci-ded to establish a data base of all potholes in Ward 5.
I was inundated with reports from fed-up citizens from all over Vanderbijlpark. It became quite clear that many of the streets in Emfuleni have now become impassable and dangerous to use. I have since compiled a report including Google Maps, identifying all the potholes reported to me. This report was presented to the Mayor, the Municipal Manager and the responsible De-puty Municipal Manager, with high hopes on my side.
These hopes were dashed during a personal meeting with the Mayor by a number of DA Councillors to discuss the matter of lack of service delivery, especially potholes. The Mayor stressed that the matter of uninterrupted water and electricity supply will be the only aspects he will concentrate on. Financing this will mean that there will be very little money left on the ELM budget for other maintenance.
This matter was taken up by DA Councillor Elize Aucamp with The Provincial Legislator. A representative of the Legislator informed Elize that, and I quote: “We must remember Emfuleni is under semi-administration and therefore certain services like fixing potholes and repairing roads will not be a priority as before.”
It is therefor quite clear that the potholes I reported on behalf of the residents will not be fixed soon by ELM.
The solution according to me is that we as the community should stand together to try and come up with innovative ideas on how to solve and fix this problem ourselves.
