Mashaba paints a realistic picture of the City
The seriousness of power outages, and damage to municipal and road infrastructure was discussed at a Region C meeting.
It is no secret that almost daily City of Johannesburg’s entities take to social media to prepare residents for or warn them about technical difficulties which hamper service delivery to the communities.
This, however, frustrates many ratepayers as the disruption of services has become an ongoing plague.
The seriousness of power outages, and damage to municipal and road infrastructure was discussed at a Region C meeting which saw the City’s Mayor, Herman Mashaba unpacking the challenges and also reporting on the progress of the new administration.
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“Our infrastructure has been allowed to deteriorate to a point of collapse,” he said.
“The 100 000 potholes in our city arise from a shocking R11,8 billion backlog in our road network repairs. In 2017, over 3 900 kilometres of our roads had fallen into the classification of poor or very poor. This is equivalent to the distance between Johannesburg and Nairobi,” Mashaba said.
He added that this has been made worse by a R56 billion backlog in storm water drainage repairs, that increases the structural decline of the roads. A number of communities have had incidents of flooding, including the whole of Soweto where no storm water drainage systems have ever been installed.
“Seventy-eight per cent of our 900 bridges in the city are classified as being in either poor or very poor condition. The City requires R6,5 billion to address this,” Mashaba explained.
Mashaba also touched on the electricity infrastructure backlog and said, “Over 27 per cent of our bulk transformers now operate beyond their useful span, their ages ranging between 48 and 91 years. Our electricity infrastructure backlog sits at a staggering R17 billion, causing our residents to suffer 170 000 low-voltage outages in this past financial year alone,” he explained in front of concerned residents at the meeting held at the Panorama Primary School in Weltevreden Park on 8 August.
Residents used the opportunity to echo their grievances with the City, which ranged from incorrect billings, power problems and damage to infrastructure. Mashaba assured the residents that their problems will be looked into. “I would like to assure you that we are engaging Rand Water to ensure that these problems stop immediately,” said Mashaba, referring to the issue of Rand Water contractors damaging water pipes and sewer lines.
“Our water network can be likened to cartoon characters plugging the leaks in a ship with their fingers and toes.“
Data from 2016/17 shows that the water network suffered 45 000 leaks per year. This is despite the fact that we know that water will be one of the greatest challenges in future,” he said.
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