Before you vote for the DA on 23 May: Seen one bit of advice? What to do when you get that R75 000 water bill? Go to the polls and write across your ballot “None of the above!” Our vice-principal was the Mayor of Roodepoort.
They did not get paid for being members of Council but received ‘honoraria’. My 81-year-old dad is caught up in ‘the Joburg Billing Crisis’. It wiped out all his savings.
The Star’s Metrowatch reported that a 92-year-old spent eight months without lights or water after disconnection for a huge bill under this DA government. That is a violation of the Older Persons Act 13 of 2006. The Office of the Ombudsman opened in July 2015. A complaint detailing how the City of Johannesburg violated my elderly father’s rights lay with the Ombudsman for three years, yet was not resolved lawfully.
DA members of Council are ignoring demands to hold the Acting Ombudsman to account per the Ombudsman By-Law. The DA has thrown R120 million at the Office for the Ombudsman. Section 5(1) of the Local Government: Municipal Systems Act 32 of 2000 provides that “Members of the local community have the right to submit representations and complaints to the municipal council and to prompt responses to their written or oral complaints”.
The Citizen reported the following a month ago: “Gumede [Johannesburg’s former Ombudsman] argued the mayor was hellbent on replacing him with a ‘sweetheart ombudsman’ who would not rule against him in cases brought to his office by aggrieved parties.”
