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----- Original Message -----From: Lee CahillSent: Friday, August 07, 2009 7:44 AMSubject: Joburg Rates BoycottDear Mr President,Re: Joburg Rates BoycottI was heartened and encouraged to read of your unannounced visit to Balfour inMpumalanga earlier this week. This is how the CEO of a nation should respond inthe face of such vehement - and legitimate - protests by the people. Following onMinister Sexwale's overnight visit to Diepsloot, this gives hope of a new era ofgovernance in South Africa.It is further to this - and to your open invitation to all South Africans toadvise you of any persistent service delivery problems - that I am writing to you.In short, after years of both acute and chronic service delivery problems in theCity of Johannesburg, myself and a group of neighbours launched a civildisobedience campaign called Joburg Rates Boycott on Monday (seehttp://joburgratesboycott.blogspot.com). The attached media release has been sentout to the local media announcing the campaign, and full details of how it willwork are given on the site.We would like you to be aware of the fact that service delivery problems are asmuch of an issue in some of our large cities as they are in small, ruralmunicipalities like Balfour, and ask that you investigate the situation in theCity of Johannesburg as a matter of urgency. For your information, an extract fromrecent correspondence with Councillor Carol Milner, who represents Ward 66, isgiven below. This provides details of a recent five-day power cut in Kensington,and another problem (one of many) that, in this case, has gone unresolved for twoyears.We hope that this appeal to you, the highest authority in the land, willfacilitate the new beginning we are hoping for in Johannesburg.Respectfully yours,Lee Cahill (Ms)--------------------------------------------------------------------------------Independent Communications Consultant, Writer and Editor--------------------------------------------------------------------------------Extract from correspondence with Councillor Carol Milner dated 6 August 2009:Power CutAs for the power cut, here's a brief summary with the relevant reference numbers,
 
which also appear on the campaign's web site:The power went down at around 21:00 on Wednesday, 29 June. We had beenexperiencing intermittent blackouts for about two weeks by this time, and I hadlogged an online complaint earlier that day. I tried to get through to JoburgConnect to report the situation, but the line kept clicking off as soon as I hadselected the City Power option. I finally managed to get through at around 05:00the following day, and logged an initial complaint (reference number 1898239154).As I had urgent work to do and was unable to work from my home office, I went to afriend's house to work the following morning, and followed up on the complaintfrom there at around 12:00. I didn't have my reference number with me, and thecall centre was unable to trace my complaint using my name, so I logged secondcomplaint (1898247902). I followed up on this the next evening (2 August), and wastold that the matter was in hand. I was told that the fault should already havebeen repaired by 16:30, and that a crew would definitely attend to the problemthat night.When we were still without power by Friday, I spent the whole day trying to getthrough to Joburg Connect, without any success. Either the line clicked off as ithad done before, or - as happened on two occasions - the line was picked up by anoperator and immediately put down again. I eventually managed to get through ataround 18:00, when I was told that my complaint had been resolved. When I saidthat it hadn't been resolved and that we'd been without power for several days, Iwas told I would need to log a further complaint, which I did (reference number1898286317).I followed up on this at around 10:30 on Sunday, 2 August, and was again told thatthe complaint had been resolved. I logged a fourth complaint, and this time askedfor the previous reference numbers to be recorded as part of the complaint.When the issue still hadn't been resolved by Monday morning, I called to follow upagain, and was told there had been no progress on my complaint of the previousday. At this point, I asked the operator to record that I would be launching arates boycott campaign in response to this situation. By mid-morning, a crew hadcome out to assess the problem, but they didn't start working on it until duskthat day. The power was down for about 3 hours in the early evening while theyworked on the fault, and it was restored just before 21:00 - just short of fivedays after it had gone down.During this period three neighbours that I know of also repeatedly reported thefault, but had much the same experience as I had had.Stormwater DrainI would also like to take this opportunity to follow up on the illegal drivewayaccess across the stormwater drain next to my house (see attached picture), amatter which has remained unresolved for over two years now. This has become evenmore urgent since I last corresponded with you, as the metal cover to the sewerthat runs below the drain has since been stolen (because city workers left theaccess gate that took me a decade to have installed unlocked). Now every time itrains, the sewer clogs up and overflows into the stormwater drain, and theeffluent flows down to Rhodes Park.As you know, the drain itself is inadequate to start with, and was flooding intothe street before the illegal driveway was installed. Since the installation ofthe driveway access, however, I've experienced repeated and severe flooding, asthe grating over the drain not only clogs up with leaves, but the concrete to the
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