Infrastructure in Bay in poor state

THE Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality was once one of the best-run municipalities in the country. We used to get awards for being the cleanest city, having the best housing model, and for our governance and financial management practices.

As things stands now, our city's infrastructure is in a state of total disrepair. We are challenged by lack of proper maintenance of our city's infrastructure due to the municipality's inability to recruit people with technical expertise.

There is a budget for those vacancies. The reason for not filling the vacancies is the shortage of data capturers in the department of human resources.

Recently a toddler died a tragic death in Uitenhage after falling into an uncovered municipal stormwater drain ("Toddler dies in drain", September 15). This tragedy happened despite the toddler's mother having reported the open drain on numerous occasions.

We are a water-scarce municipality, and we experience water wastage through water leaks and faulty drainage systems.

Our street lamps in the CBD, townships and suburbs are not functioning. We are living in a ghost city because our municipality is unable to change bulbs/globes.

This state of affairs in our municipality is not acceptable.

There are many municipalities in the Eastern Cape that are experiencing the problem of decaying infrastructure due to lack of maintenance. The most recent example is Makana where there are serious challenges with respect to water and sanitation.

All these problems of dilapidation of local government infrastructure are due to political instability in the ruling party. When the centre does not hold, things fall apart.

Instead of addressing issues of service delivery, leaders of the ruling party are fighting among themselves for tenders and cadre deployments. Local government is compromised by cadre deployment by the ruling party and that leads to lack of capacity to deliver services to our people.

The residents of the NMBM have to realise that time for change is now. We need a government that is going to respond to the needs and challenges of our people.

The best model of good governance is experienced in municipalities of the Western Cape where the DA governs. The story of the Western Cape can be realised here in Eastern Cape, in the NMBM, by voting for the DA come local government elections in 2016.

The residents of NMBM will have a choice between misery and arrogance from the ruling party, or prosperity and stability provided by the DA alternative government.

Sandile Rwexwana, DA PR councillor, Port Elizabeth