Northern Joburg unhappy with municipality – says survey
JOHANNESBURG – Survey is conducted on residents' perceptions on service delivery and the mayor.
Many residents in Johannesburg’s northern suburbs are dissatisfied with the level of service delivery they receive, and if given a chance to speak to the Executive Mayor, they would voice their frustration.
This from a survey involving the perceptions of 345 residents in 55 suburbs, mostly in the north of the city.
Ward 102 councillor David Potter conducted the survey, spreading it through his emailing list, the mailing list of residents’ associations and Twitter between 19 and 26 November.
Some statistics were as follows:
When rating satisfaction with service delivery on a scale of one to 10, 48 per cent of residents rated three or below – 4.5 per cent rated 8 or above.
66 per cent of residents listed potholes as one of their ‘major gripes’ in Johannesburg.
59.5 per cent of residents use 086 056 2874 or 011 375 5555 to log issues with the City.
27.59 per cent of respondents rated the service they received while logging service delivery issues through the City’s call centre 1 out of 10, and 79.88 per cent rated 5or less.
When asked if residents generally think that the City is “trying hard at resolving service delivery issues”, 5 per cent said yes, 5.5 per cent said that City officials are lazy, 20.5 per cent said that City officials do “half jobs”, 26.5 per cent said no, and 42.5 per cent said partially.
When asked if residents have confidence that the mayor or his office would respond to one’s question, 93.5 per cent said no.
92.5 per cent of residents knew the mayor’s name (Parks Tau).
Residents were asked, “If you could ask the City of Joburg Mayor one question, what would it be?” Some unedited responses are below:
- Why are the salaries and bonuses so high but the service delivery to the people paying for these so bad?
- Why can’t you fix the potholes?
- When are you going to control miss-spent funds on parties and travel and get the city back into the black financially?
- Why does the City not educate the taxi drivers regarding responsible driving?
- What COJ job posts are filled by political cadres, what posts are vacant, and what are the high performing employees/teams/departments?
- Could you attend to urgent matters instead of putting your photograph in the newspapers all the time?
- How do you spend a typical working day?
- Why are you trying to discourage people from living here? You make it so unpleasant with mismanagement and poor service that people question whether it’s worth staying.
- What can we do that would help you and your team deliver what we pay for?
- Please will you resign?
- Why can our city not work properly like Cape Town?
- When will we reach the bottom of the service delivery down turn?
“From the survey responses received, it is clear that there are serious short, medium and long-term concerns around delivery and the state of the City of Johannesburg, with little leadership showing that change is happening,” Potter commented.
Details: City of Johannesburg 086 056 2874 or 011 375 5555; Ward 102 councillor David Potter david@oursuburb.co.za
