Recently, a resident took his concerns about no service delivery by the Johannesburg Roads Agency (JRA) to social media, in hope of a response.
The concerned resident wrote: “JRA, JRA where art though. I am here, dear resident, unable to serve,” a Shakespearean play may have read. Jokes aside! Residents are paying rates and taxes, and general taxes into what appears to be a bottomless money pit, that is forever short of budget and resources. The pictures reflect a small portion of Florida where there is a total lack of maintenance by JRA to repair the storm water culverts and to do the cleaning and ‘skoffeling’ of the verges. Emails are written, faults get logged, physical inspections and meetings are held by community members with JRA officials, yet the work does not get done. So what must residents do?”
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https://roodepoortrecord.co.za/2019/03/06/web-jra-commits-to-fixing-potholes-print-jra-makes-fixing-potholes-a-priority-2/
In response, to the matter, Ward 70 councillor, Caleb Finn wrote: “Thank you for raising these issues. I realise the extent of the efforts put in by community volunteers to try to improve the situation within our community.
“I do not believe it is fair to say that JRA has done none of what you asked for, in the past few months several issues have been dealt with. Unfortunately there is a lot outstanding and it is a cause for concern. JRA as an entity was mismanaged for many years and at present the city’s Group Forensics Department is busy with an investigation into several departments of the JRA. This has already led to a number of suspensions and the removal of corrupt officials.
“This of course has a knock-on impact as several managers are not at work due to them being investigated, placing added pressure on the handful who are still at work,” he said.
Finn also mentioned that, shortly after the new administration took over in 2016, the Mayor released a detailed report on the infrastructure backlog in the city. JRA was one of the hardest hit and with almost immediate effect the Mayor and his team redirected money to deal with critical issues such as collapsing bridges, storm-water issues and also the speeding up of the resurfacing programme as the city is many years behind on this. The Mayor and his team are concerned about JRA and are working hard to firstly deal with the corruption which robbed the entity of its ability to perform. They are also firmly focused on improving the entity’s service output.
“Residents are encouraged to report road-related matters to hotline@jra.org.za and escalate them to me at admin@ward70.org.za if they are not resolved within a reasonable period of time.
“Please be assured that you have my full support in resolving these issues,” he concluded.
