Report service delivery issues with new mobile app

Link enables Capetonians to inform municipality about faults, outages

ANEW app called Link has made it easier for Capetonians to report service delivery problems directly to the municipality. Link provides a platform for people to report problems such as blocked drains, burst pipes, electricity outages, missing manhole covers, the non-collection of refuse and faulty traffic lights.

It has a direct link into the city’s service request centre, where reports are generated, and it provides a reference number.

Link director Charles Murray said South Africans often struggled to make their grievances heard when it came to municipal and community issues and they “don’t now how to report these”.

“We are providing a platform to make their reporting easier, simultaneously empowering the community,” he said.

Murray said Link, which also connected residents of Johannesburg and Pretoria to their municipalities, saved the city the costs of maintaining an app and taking phone calls. It also saved consumers the cost of calls.

Murray said people who wanted to link with their local ward, could go to “Messages”, click on the “+” icon, select “Add channels” and tap the blue “Municipal ward” icon, which could enable the app to geo-locate and link to their ward.

“If you download the app while away from home, enter your address in the search bar after clicking on the ‘municipal ward’ icon.

“As an added benefit, Vodacom clients won’t pay for, or make use of, their data when downloading the app from the Vodacom app store or when using the municipal ward feature.”

Raelene Arendse, a mayoral committee member for corporate services, said: “This app is a tangible example of the benefits of the city’s open data portal, which allows businesses to tap into the city’s data and to produce new products/applications. We encourage more businesses and innovators to access the free data to make more resident-facing services available on digital platforms.”