Outcry over ‘ineffective’ Ombud
Cries of vulnerable fall on deaf ears as office meant to deal with their service complaints is itself unresponsive
THE City’s Ombudsman has been accused of being ineffective in dealing with the many complaints that have landed on his desk. According to the City, during the third quarter of the year from July to September more than 301 complaints were received.
Stop CoCT founder Sandra Dickson said none of the complaints about poor services had been resolved.
“The City’s office of the Ombudsman is staffed by people paid by the City and therefore impartiality by the City Ombudsman is impossible. The public has no impartial representation or representative in the Ombudsman’s office to lend it any credibility.
“We ourselves have lodged complaints and they have not resolved any of it.” Dickson claimed the public was at the mercy of the office of the Ombudsman.
“Once at the Ombudsman, queries are sent to the very departments where the queries arose and often the people that are the reason for the public’s complaints are the very ones that are designated to resolve the issue.
“This results in a closed circle inside the City to which the public is subjected to, hence the large number of unresolved complaints regarding City and the public constantly on the negative receiving end of unresolved complaints,” she said.
An example of an unresolved complaint is that of District Six pensioner Sophia who said she had a water bill of more than R1.6 million and had been wrestling with the City for about three years – the same period the Ombudsman had been busy with her complaint.
“I feel like I am being held hostage.
This has been going on for over three years and I am a pensioner. I am in no position to pay this money. The City has offered to reduce this by 50%, but for a pensioner that is still a lot of money,” said Sultan.
Greater Cape Town Civic Alliance treasurer Patrick Melly said: “The frustrating part is that they take a long time to get back to residents and they never have adequate answers.
“The City council has this notion of saying they are going to get back to you but don’t.”
Ndifuna Ukwazi community organiser Buhle Booi said: “The Ombudsman is a necessary body to investigate and deal with complaints against the City.
“However, it needs to be capacitated because it is almost a non-functional body that is not accessible to general members of the public and the communities are unaware of complaint processes.
“This is a body that is meant to be independent and impartial in its work and deal with the unresponsiveness of the City service delivery matters, but still today the cries of the vulnerable communities of Khayelitsha fall on deaf ears, so how do you complain about the unresponsiveness of the City to a body that is in itself unresponsive to complaints?”
City Ombud Vusumzi Magwebu, however, denied the allegations.
“The majority of the complaints received have related to debt management and financial assistance mechanisms offered,” Magwebu said.
“The Ombudman’s Office has successfully escalated certain cases for intervention and negotiations; 189 cases have been resolved,” he said.