Councillors halt council meeting

CHAKALISA DUBE
Staff Writer | Friday April 26, 2013 00:00

 

The councillors had convened the meeting to air their grievances about the ailing service delivery by city council officers. Councillors summoned FCC heads of department as well as the administration's head honcho, city clerk Charles Amos, to avail themselves at the meeting in order to explain themselves. However, inexplicably, in what looked like a horrible snub the heads did not turn up which set councillors' tempers at boiling point.

Only Amos honoured the appointment and as a result, the legislators decided to call off the meeting.They said they would not have anything to do with his 'feeble explanations'. The city clerk had just settled behind the podium in a bid to respond to some of their concerns when the councillors said enough is enough. 

'We are not going to continue if the department heads are not available. 'We want them to give us reasons why the city council administration wing has failed to implement some of the resolutions we made in council meetings and why the service delivery from the council is not up to standard.

'The city council officers do not take us seriously. They could have come here to explain their position,' a concerned Monarch South councillor, Ignatius Moswaane, who had proposed the special meeting, charged.The visibly worried councillors agreed that another meeting be held on Monday where all departments' heads should be present. The councillors are of the view that the city council officers have failed to deal with waste around the city. They are also adamant that the city council has failed to deal with the constant faults experienced by the city's traffic lights.

According to them, the city council has also failed to provide sufficient reasons as to why it has failed to find a permanent solution to the constant faults experienced by the traffic lights around the city.'Most of the street lights constantly experience faults and some of them are not working at all. Despite numerous inquiries from the councillors the city council administration has failed to give us reasons as to why it cannot permanently solve the problem,' said Moswaane. He also said that the city council administration does not implement resolutions from councillors.

Former mayor Shadreck Nyeku said that the city council does not adhere to services standard.'For example we have residential waste that has to be collected in seven days but it never happens. The council takes many days to collect such waste. The uncollected waste poses a health risk to the public.'We have always complained about this (uncollected waste) to the FCC but no solution has been found to this problem as yet.

'Even to pay an invoice by the city council takes months instead of the 10 days that is on the service standards.'We have also always told the city council to deal with this problem because it inconveniences those who do business with them (FCC), but to date it still exists,' Nyeku told the council meeting.

The councillors also said that the FCC has failed to buy a car for the city mayor, a request that was made several years ago. Nyeku, who recently stepped down after his term lapsed said the current mayor uses a ramshackle vehicle that constantly breaks down.'He should be bought a new car urgently. Failure to do so will lead to us choosing a better car from the council fleet and give it to the mayor, 'Botsalano councillor Kays Phitshana warned.