Residents demand answers in meeting with mayor and premier

Residents of Parkwood, Ottery, Lavender Hill and surrounding areas took the opportunity to share their service delivery gripes with Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis and Premier Alan Winde during a meeting at the Grassy Park civic centre last Thursday, October 3.

However, a group of protesters disagreed with the way the meeting was presented as they wanted the authorities to address them as organisations or civic associations and not as individuals.

Pastor Paul Phillips, from Lotus River, who is also the community leader of the Voice of Parkwood, said: “I don’t think this meeting will achieve anything as this is ticking the political boxes for the Democratic Alliance party. They want to personalise our concerns. The City doesn't want to address our concerns collectively. Their strategies want to divide us to individually engage them. Some people are not able to convey their concerns individually, that is why we have collective units and organisations such as the civics.”

The disgruntled protesters said they had burning questions that were stated in a memorandum such as alleged unfairness in the Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP), concerns about electricity meters and other service delivery problems.

Mr Hill-Lewis decided to later meet with the protesters at 7.30pm when he addressed the them and received a new memorandum.

Ottery community leader Melanie Arendse voiced her concern regarding the EPWP issue and she said the questions were not answered completely (“Ottery job seekers question EPWP fairness”, Southern Mail, August 28).

Ms Arendse said the community had witnessed nepotism within the EPWP system and that everyone should have an equal opportunity to work.

Ms Arendse referred to a memorandum where it was requested that the Sub-council 18 enhance transparency and fairness regarding the EPWP system.

“An example of the unfairness is, one project had five different contractors but the same CLOs (community liaison officers) have been chosen (to work) on this project for three years.

“To ensure that this programme is secured from those who seek to corrupt the system and to bring fairness, I have been to a housing meeting for officials and called for a steering committee. One of the ladies that was a supervisor at a security job said to me that she was called in as a CLO. I asked her if there was no contractor what job was then available? The councillors could not answer. This means that if they get a sixth contractor the same two CLOs will be appointed again,” Ms Arendse said.

“If we ask them about it they say it is the councillor’s preference to choose the CLO. We want them to investigate the unfair appointments of the same people.”

Mr Hill-Lewis responded: “We will not resolve this allegation now. I will review the correspondence that Fred Monk (Manager of Sub-council 18) will send me. However, I have been on record and you can ask any of my colleagues that councillors should have no involvement in the appointment of CLOs. It should be done professionally via a public advertisement process and there should be no political involvement with that appointment.”

Parkwood resident Oscar Samuels, who is also a member of the 021 Community Action Group based in Lavender Hill, spoke about the installation of the new electricity meters.

“Those new meter boxes they are canvassing for and say that people will benefit from, is a lie. We are asking people to support us. We won’t buckle down (“Protests against new electricity meters continue”, Southern Mail, October 1)”.

Mr Winde said: “The City is paying an electricity debt of more than a billion rand a month owed to Eskom for the citizens' use of electricity. Regarding the electricity boxes, I can’t answer that, you need to ask the City. I ask myself why would the City want to do that. Presumably they want better management systems whether people pay or not and how to manage the electricity flow. I also understand that people are poor, people are indigent, people have no jobs. But I also know that the City is offering the most rebate for indigent people. If everyone wants free electricity, who is going to pay the billion rand every month?

“Energy from a provincial level - we have put in a plan to put 5700 megawatts of power into the Western Cape, through private sector investment and competition so that we don’t rely on Eskom fully. And my prediction is with these companies you are going to see prices getting cheaper and not very expensive because the next energy increase that Eskom is asking for is 42%. That is totally unaffordable and we will object to it in court. In an economy at the moment, with the low unemployment rate, we cannot tax and burden people while we haven’t got jobs and opportunities,” said Mr Winde.