WARD 90 NEWS

Welcome to the final edition of Ward 90 News for 2010. It's been a busy year all round. From the pride of hosting the world's first African World Cup to President Zuma's recent cabinet reshuffle to the near collapse of many the City's indebted municipal owned entities (MOEs), it's been a year of amazing contrast with some spectacular highs and some new-found lows.

If 2010 has taught is anything, is that "where there is a will there truly is a way" - the 2010 FIFA World Cup went off with out some much as hitch despite the predictions of nay sayers (mostly the UK journalistic fraternity) and yet service delivery continued to decline.

IN THIS YEARS FINAL EDITION

• Rates Debacle - What you need to know Project Phakama and what we are doing about it.
• Ward Delimitation and local government election news.
• Suburb Focus on Sandhurst: What we're doing to resolve problems in the suburb;
• Ward 90 Business Plan Ward 90 is the first Ward in the city to adopt a business plan to improve ward governance and enhance accountability to voters.
• Ward Wins 2010 in review

A TASTE OF NEWS

Ward Delimitation

The new ward boundaries for next year's local government election have been finalised. Parktown North and Rosebank, which currently form part of Ward 90, will be joined with Parkhurst, Saxonwold, parts of Greenside and Blairgowrie to form a new ward, Ward 117.

The formation of Ward 117 forms part of the overall delimitation process in the city, which will reduce the size of wards (currently the size of old constituencies (which are made up of 4-6 wards) prior to 1994)

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City of Johannesburg Electricity Bills

Dear HGC Residents

We have had several emails from residents in your area (and many other areas) about various complaints regarding their City of Johannesburg bills. In many cases residents were threatened with disconnection, and in many other cases residents were disconnected without warning. I am copying you on a reply from the ward councilor in ward 90 (Gordon Mackay) to a resident in Hurlingham. If you have billing problems log the matter and get a reference number (011 375 5555) After that you can contact your own ward caouncillor for assistance, or go to your nearest people’s centre (be prepared to wait in long queues)

Ward Councillor - Gordon Mackay's response:

I am particularly angered by the fact that you have been disconnected as we in the DA have written to MMC Parks Tau on several occasion requesting that disconnections be discontinued until the City's is able to ensure the accuracy of its new billing system. These calls of gone unheeded and a number of residents in the Ward have been incorrectly disconnected. In most cases the City has also failed to follow its own disconnection procedures which require that a resident be notified in advance of the disconnection. Did you receive such a notice?!?

Your situation is not unique (little comfort I know) the allocation of accounts to the wrong person is rife as result of the systems integration currently underway at the City. The exact same thing happened to the previous Councillor of this Ward, current DA MP Ian Ollis - a Craighall Park resident who has services disconnected on Dec 23 - even though the DA requested that disconnections be discontinued over this period as residents had no proper recourse to resolve issues.

In terms of solving your problem - you will need to go into the People's Centre - as only these officials have the power to remove the block on your account and make sure your services are reconnected. Can I recommend that you speak to the Region E People's Centre on Fredman Drive Sandton

Also note - that last week on my visit to the People's Centre – officials confided to me that with a massive backlog of issues and that they weren't gettting to resident's emails, and they generally weren't getting to anyone that wasn't sitting in front of them – hence the lack of response to your emails”.