DA — Residents of Ekurhuleni abandoned due to poor leadership

by Ald Tania Campbell — DA Leader in Ekurhuleni

and Cllr Alta de Beer — DA Ward Councillor in Ekurhuleni

Date: 30 July 2021

Release: Immediate

Type: Media Statement

The Democratic Alliance (DA) in Ekurhuleni has slammed the failing ANC and its coalition partners. This as we challenged the ANC-appointed Executive Mayor, Cllr Mzwandile Masina, at the recent Council meeting, over the rapidly failing service delivery across the city.

The Batho Pele Principles, which the City of Ekurhuleni (CoE) prescribes, is about putting ‘people first’ and providing good customer service to users of government services. The ANC and its coalition partners aren’t ensuring this, as residents of Germiston have been without electricity for seven days and other areas experiencing outages for days-on-end. During a global pandemic and a cold snap, this is unacceptable!

Residents continue to report outages and service delivery issues on the Ekurhuleni App and with the call centre. Unfortunately, these systems are non-functional and provide incorrect feedback to residents. No resident should wait up to 45 minutes for an operator to answer a service delivery request, only to have the call terminated. This is not service delivery and this is not Batho Pele.

While the DA continues to hold the ANC mayor, Cllr Masina, and his executive to account, by demanding action, he has instead chosen to ignore our calls and allow residents to spend days in darkness.

Despite this inaction by Cllr Masina, we, as the DA, have been working closely with officials to ensure services are restored. We would like to thank all our front-line workers who continue to put their lives at risk to protect us and deliver services to the residents of the city under these trying circumstances.

The City of Ekurhuleni (CoE) is in crisis! The recent riots and looting highlights the plight of our residents. It is appalling that an ANC councillor has been arrested for his alleged involvement in the looting in Daveyton. This elected public representative, instead of being a community leader, allegedly plundered a bottle store and caused unrest in his community. We welcome his arrest and trust that the City will take the necessary steps to decisively deal with this behaviour.

During these difficult times, our communities need strong and decisive leadership!

The City’s fragile infrastructure is open to sabotage and the Mayor needs to take action and ensure the municipal infrastructure is secure and safe from interference.

As the DA, we believe the people of Ekurhuleni deserve to live in a world-class city. A responsive, interactive city that puts its people first. We must strive to build a capable city that informs residents timeously of service delivery issues or backlogs.

We must invest in smart meters and technologies that provide better, more sustainable services, by upgrading and modernising our infrastructure. This is how we can attract investors and rebuild our City after the COVID-19 Pandemic.

This is the City the DA strives for, where we stop the pilfering of public funds for political gains and instead use the money to uplift wards and communities. When confronted with the lack of service delivery, the ANC-appointed Mayor Masina answered that it is not his job and he refuses to answer the DA’s calls when phoning or messaging him regarding power outages or any other service delivery issues. This blatant disregard of residents’ interest and service delivery is a major concern to the DA as the Mayor refuses to uphold and fulfil his responsibilities as an Executive Mayor in the City.

At the upcoming local government elections, communities can vote for change, by voting for the DA.

Sign our petition calling for the removal of Mayor Masina and help bring change to Ekurhuleni.

https://www.petitions.net/petition_calling_for_the_removal_of_executive_mayor_cllr_mzwandile_masina

#Time4Change

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

Ald Tania Campbell

DA Leader in Ekurhuleni