Residents pray for improvement as their suburbs deteriorate due to 'poor basic service delivery'

It is a story of pain, with water and electricity outages almost a daily occurrence and residents praying municipal service delivery will one day improve.

Primrose Rate Payers Association member and community activist David Hutch described the “poor standard” of service delivery in his area in the Ekurhuleni metropolitan municipality as having reached a crisis level, which is causing residents turning against each other. 

“At one point, we had to rush to a queue of people that were lining up for water to go and break up fights as people were trying to get water for their families. Like I said, that is a very dangerous situation to be in,” said Hutch. 

He said the state of service delivery in his community has become so bad that residents and business owners have decided to do things themselves instead of relying on the municipality to provide basic services. 

“If it is not water cuts, it is power cuts, and rubbish collection seldom happens on time and most of the time it is us, the non-governmental organisations, that get involved and see if we can calm the situation.”

Hutch said many people in his community want to leave but “there is always that sense of responsibility that you can't just move”.

He said over the past five years, there has been a definite shift in the time that things get done which has forced residents and business owners to seek ways to survive without having to rely on the municipality. 

“With regards to water, it is a big one. The electricity we are being overcharged, the water we are being overcharged — the electricity can get quite expensive. With rubbish collection, we don't know if it will be collected. Most of the time, we have to consult with the ward councillor to find out and ask if we should put our dustbins out or not,” he said. 

Business owner George Dorsam, who has been operating his pizza business in the Germiston area for more than eight years, doesn't rely on the government any more for the provision of services. 

He said the best way to keep one's business afloat is to drill for water and rely on solar and generators for power supply.

He said unemployment in his area is high so people steal electric cables and the suburbs go for days without electricity.

“Guys are sabotaging the electricity line; they steal the electricity and that is the problem. Imagine you steal that small copper wire that is like [worth] R70 and the whole area is without power for the whole week,” he said.

He added that “municipal services are worse”. 

According to Hutch, they usually stock up on water just in case there are water cuts. He said there are times when water outages last for days, adding to the frustration caused by prolonged power outages.

“If you can imagine the entire area with 36,000 residents without water. How volatile a situation can get. I think people, even though very annoyed without power but without water as well, are a problem. Imagine an area without all the necessities that are meant to be provided to us.”

Merryl Swimming, 61, who has been staying in the Primrose area for more than 55 years, said because of the problems property values were depreciating.

“There are no street lights, roads are worse — potholes on each street. Cables are stolen and it is always power outages. The house prices have devalued — all those street lights are gone. We report it and nothing gets done.

“Our roads are in a shocking condition — they are disgusting. It's like potholes, it is just disgusting,” she said. 

According to the 2022/23 Auditor-General report, the City of Ekurhuleni regressed from a clean audit to an unqualified audit opinion with findings due to lapsed procurement and contract management controls.

Since the 2021 local government elections, the city council has been led by a coalition whose governance has been marred by instability and removal of mayors. 

In his speech marking 100 days in office on Thursday, mayor Nkosindiphile Xhakaza said the journey traversed, though filled with some challenges, has been marked by significant strides towards restoring service delivery.

He said the administration was firmly committed to six key pillars, among them the provision of quality and sustainable services to all residents. He said they have already started to implement mayoral flagship projects including setting up a robust service delivery war room.

“One of our key initiatives was the establishment of the mayoral service delivery war room — a multi-departmental platform designed to fast track the response time for service delivery.

“The war room is also designed to foster greater accountability and responsiveness, ensuring that we effectively address service interruptions or breakdowns as reported in the incident management system (IMS),” he said. 

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