Chloorkop industry suffers at the hands of an incompetent ANC-led municipality

by Ald. Benno Robinson — DA Ward Councillor in Ekurhuleni

Date: 06 August 2021

Release: Immediate

Type: Media statement

The many important and strategic industries in the Chloorkop area have been complaining and escalating a range of issues to the ANC-led coalition government in the City of Ekurhuleni (CoE) for a number of years without any action taken by the incumbent administration.

It has now reached a point that the incompetence and unresponsive Metro has led to an unprecedented decline of the area. Most notable through excessive illegal dumping of building rubble, a lack of grass cutting, a lack of water supply due to the failing storm water infrastructure in the area, and a major increase in criminal activity such as vehicle hijacking and business premises being burgled.

The many industries, which include a number of important and strategic chemical companies, that operate in the area have expressed major concerns for the safety of their staff when arriving and leaving work. The open area, bordering the companies provides easy access to both Allandale Road and Zuurfontein Road, meaning that criminal opportunists not only have ample place to hide amongst the long and unkempt grass, but also have easy exit routes onto the two main arterials.

Business owners have been calling for the Metro to boom off the area as a means to mitigate against the mentioned degrading issues facing Chloorkop, while one particular business owner has even requested to purchase the property privately. He has subsequently had little response from the Metro.

In addition, Hytor Road — an important connector to many of the industries in the area that sees many heavy duty trucks, has yet to be tarred despite numerous requests from business owners resulting in empty promises from the Metro. The dust that emanates from the gravel road also poses a health and safety hazard to the businesses that operate next to the road.

As with many areas of the City, and because of a complete breakdown of service delivery, private business owners have had to foot the bill for grass cutting and general maintenance in the area, despite paying a monthly fee to the municipality of R1500 to provide such services. Unfortunately, due to the scale of the illegal dumping, private grass cutting initiatives, simply, cannot keep up.

Due to the inability of officials and the failing ANC-run Metro at large, business owners have called on the Democratic Alliance (DA) in Ekurhuleni to take up their plight in forcing the City to provide the desperately needed services to the area, which are now starting to have an adverse economic impact.

A meeting to plot the way forward has been scheduled for the 11th of August 2021 by Metro officials. From previous experience, however, this talk shop is unlikely to yield any results. The DA will thereby be taking up the issue with the Metro and drive the issue through any means necessary to ensure that the ANC and their coalition partners* in the Metro are held to account and services are restored to this very important and strategic driver to the local economy.

For a closer look at the degradation of the area see the following link — Facebook

#Time4Change

*Coalition Partners: African Independent Congress (AIC), Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), Patriotic Alliance (PA) and Independent Ratepayers Association of South Africa (IRASA)

Ald. Benno Robinson

DA Ward Councillor in Ekurhuleni