Ratepayers deserve better

Joburg Water and City Power are taking noticeably longer to deal with outages and other complaints, such as reinstatements where roads and pavements have been dug up.

- Martin Williams

Managers are not coping, despite their heroic efforts under incompetent, corrupt political leadership. Ratepayers are treated as sources to be fleeced rather than as deserving recipients of municipal services.

Consider the latest budget documents tabled in council and distributed for public comment. There are no allocations directly for my ward 90, which includes high-ratepaying suburbs Sandhurst, Hyde Park, Hurlingham and Dunkeld, among others.

Although money is allocated for bridge rehabilitation ratepaying, there is nothing specifically for Conrad Drive Bridge which joins ward 90 with ward 102 at Blairgowrie.

Widening the bridge is essential to relieve heavy traffic congestion. It was on the city's budget before I became ward councillor in 2016, but not much has happened since. Budget is allocated, then removed.

Understandably, there's nothing for the broken Craighall Park "blue bridge" across the Braamfontein Spruit.