The ratepayers and taxpayers
of Ottawa and Parkgate, near Verulam to the north of Durban, have vowed to take
action against the daily interruptions
to the water and electricity supplies and the general degeneration of their
residential areas.
The angry and fed-up residents
took the decision at a meeting at the Ottawa Town Hall on Monday evening.
The meeting, convened by
the Ottawa Environmental Forum, was attended, among others, by the councillor
for the area, Mr Rory McPherson, and representatives of local concerned
ratepayers and residents association.
A number of disillusioned
ratepayers told the meeting that in addition to the daily water and electricity
disruptions in their residential areas; they were also fed up with the filth,
litter and rubbish all over the main road and on roads alongside their homes;
the sewer stink emanating from a nearby sewer tank; and the general degeneration
and destruction of the environment.
One woman resident said
in addition to load shedding she did not have electricity for 29 hours last
week. They had also suffered water cuts on a daily basis.
“Our lives have been
made miserable by a municipality that just doesn’t care about efficient and
proper service delivery in our residential area,” she said.
“How long must we put up
with this nonsense? The regular disruptions in our water and electricity
supplies are just unacceptable. We cannot put up with this kind of lack of care
by the municipality. We must do something to rectify the current state of
affairs.”
One elderly lady said
she had been living in the area for more than 30 years and had been involved in
the anti-apartheid struggles.
“I never expected that
we would reach this stage of destruction of our water and electricity
infrastructure in our new South Africa in the past decade or so,” she said.
One resident of Parkgate
said they paid their water and electricity accounts and their rates and taxes promptly
every month but yet they had to put up with water and electricity cuts.
“This has been going on
for the past few years and this has now degenerated to unbearable levels,” he
said.
“We have had enough and
something must be done to bring about relief for the ratepayers and residents.”
The local councillor, Mr
McPherson, told the residents that he was doing everything possible to assist
the residents but he believed that the regular blow outs at the electricity
sub-stations were nothing more than “sabotage”.
He said this must be
investigated by the police because the municipal leaders and officials were not
doing anything to resolve the problems.
Ms Andisha Maharaj, convenor of the Ottawa Environmental Forum, told the meeting that the Forum had been making regular representations to the municipality about the electricity and water cuts and the general degeneration that the residents had been caught up with for more than a decade - dating as far back as early 2000.
"The electricity outages resulting from transformers blowing up can be directly linked to the alterations to the electricity supply to Ottawa.
"It is known fact that electricity was siphoned to provide for the Cornubia project and that authorities and developers of Cornubia project are
well aware of the shortcomings but yet for over ten years have been sitting on their
laurels doing nothing to correct the supply to Ottawa."
Another resident said they had to write officially to the municipality’s electricity and water departments and other departments about the issues raised at the meeting.
She said that they could
then take up the matter at other government levels. Ends – subrygovender@gmail.com March 15 2022
