Potholes at Mdantsane railway station – potential for a tragedy
THIS is a plea to Buffalo City Metro to fix the potholes that have been on a road for more than five years.
I am a regular user of the road that passes Mdantsane railway station to Mount Ruth railway station.
On Thursday (June 25) I was travelling to work when I watched in despair as I saw about five vehicles next to the road with flat tyres – each with two tyres flat because of the potholes.
This is a plea to the municipality to fix these potholes, before something tragic happens or someone dies because of them.
I am fearing for those who do not know about these potholes. I am lucky because I know where they are and I can avoid them.
I feel like I will also be at fault if something tragic happens without me having written this letter to warn other motorists.
I hope that whoever is responsible for fixing these potholes does so as a matter of urgency. — Thanduxolo Velaphi, Amalinda
Dear Mr Mayor
THIS is an open letter to the new mayor of the Buffalo City Metro, Alfred Mtsi.
He made many promises when he was promoted to be the new broom – filling the vacancy left by Zukiswa Ncitha, the old and useless broom who was, to every citizen’s surprise, promoted to the National Council of Provinces.
Mr New Broom, myself and the rest of the rate-paying residents of Gonubie will keep a close watch to see if all your promises will at least see the light and if it was not just talk.
We wish to inform Mr New Broom that we in Gonubie were just about totally pushed aside by the old broom, who also incidentally also occupied the mayoral house here.
She flew in at high speed sometimes and left at the same low-flying speed in expensive black cars with bodyguards not able to notice the decline in the living standards in our beloved “home town” due to the failure of service delivery.
Mr Mayor, you can assist us by waking up and ordering the re-opening of the Gonubie garden refuse dump on the Riegers Farm.
Please Mr Mayor, as you are now calling the shots and as a resident of Gonubie – please help the Gonubie residents with this as a very good deed to start your time of reign. — Roelf Berg, Gonubie
Third-world service
ON Monday, June 22 at approximately 11am at the Beacon Bay municipal offices, I was at the counter being attended to, when from the back offices a woman employee came through carrying a baby.
She then approached another employee in the cubicle next to where I was being attended to.
The baby was handed over to the woman who was dealing with a client, who excused herself to the customer, took a bottle of baby food and disappeared to the back offices. Baby’s feed time, I presume. The customer was left hanging in midtransaction.
If this is done blatantly during working hours in front of the public, imagine what is happening behind closed doors.
This is third-world service. No wonder the East London-based municipality performs so poorly. — S Nidivin, via e-mail
Honest day’s work
AFTER reading about these Buffalo City Municipal traffic officers, who blockaded the roads in Oxford Street as part of their protest action, I cannot help but think back to a week or two ago when I was at the traffic department to pay a fine.
While standing outside the room the officers use for their meetings, I overheard the guys talking about their problems and how they were going to approach them.
But why were these guys allowed to use the boardroom to plan their action against BCM? These guys are so unhappy with the municipality but in actual fact some of them just drive around in the residential areas looking for people who stop on the wrong side of the road or don’t stop at stop streets.
But the real dangerous and inconsiderate drivers are left to do as they like and we all know who those drivers are – the taxi drivers.
If not driving around doing nothing, you will find them sitting on the side of the road on their phones or sleeping.
Come on guys. If you want to be paid, just do an honest day’s work, control these law-breaking individuals. Maybe we can see you guys as deserving, hard-working traffic officers. — Brian, via e-mail
Lifeguard rotation
LIZ Anderson argues, in a letter, that they are enjoying good and friendly service because of the rotation of lifeguards.
While agreeing with her article, I think that Liz missed the most important issue that I had raised, namely, that this system was implemented by Mr Zeeland, on a unilateral basis, despite opposition from the lifeguards, and without any compensation for the travelling expense and wear and tear on their vehicles being taken into account. — André Swart, Gonubie
Rubbish dumping
RECENTLY we received a pamphlet with a plea from our august municipality for everybody to take rubbish in our city seriously. I immediately contacted the relevant department about the serious dumping near our business in Teichmann Place, Rosemount, about which I have begged for the last three years to no effect.
Come on Buffalo City Metro fathers. We want to work with you, but we need you to lead the way. — Barry Burger, via e-mail
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