In a community meeting led by Ward 48 councillor Zahid Badroodien, Pinate Estate residents said that they needed a bigger budget to accommodate their needs.
The meeting was held at the Turfhall Stadium on Wednesday October 12 and was attended by about 10 residents.
Chairman of the Pinate Estate Crime Watch, Zain Allie, said that compared to other areas, he felt that Pinate Estate was pushed aside and not given the same service delivery that other wards got.
He said that the R1 million ward allocation per financial year was not enough to cover what the ward needed as there were many areas included in the ward. He said different wards need different things and for some R1 million would be too little, while for others it would be too much. He questioned what the solution was to sort out issues that residents had raised with past ward councillors which were never completed.
“How do we rectify issues of the past that other ward councillors have not fixed during their term and why should this year’s budget be taken from for those issues which those councillors promised would be sorted out, but never was,” he said.
Ward 48 councillor Zahid Badroodien, said a City of Cape Town employee, Mogamad Imtiyaaz Lietch, was appointed to attend to and make sure that by-laws were being followed in the area. Residents had direct contact with him and could report any service delivery issues to him. He was appointed in August this year, and took up R300 000 of the ward budget.
However, residents complained that they’ve never met him, nor does he answer their calls and texts.
“We need more visibility from him. We need to sit down and meet with him, ” said Mr Allie.
Mr Badroodien further said that five street sweeping teams were established in Ward 48 this month, which would see to the weekly sweeping of dirty streets. The project will run until February next year. He urged residents to, however, sweep in front of their houses and keep their areas clean.
“It all comes back to the community to clean in front of your houses. The team is there but we would like each resident to take responsibility for their space,” he said.
Mr Badroodien said that he would like to establish a Community Improvement District (CID) team in Ward 48, which would add services to the ward, including safety, urban management, and social development services.
“It adds a service to what the City is doing. We need 60% of the community to buy in before it can happen. The community will decide what they need from the CID and it will include local employees,” he said.
He said that the rest of the ward budget was used to upgrade the Belthorn Road park with a walking track, and gym, and also a soft landing under the jungle gym, which cost R340 000. He allocated R100 000 to neighbourhood watches for equipment, R60 000 to youth programmes, and R50 000 to non-profit organisations doing community work.
“We opened a call for organisations dealing with the rehabilitation of substance and alcohol abuse and gender-based violence but no one applied for funding. Our main aim has been completing previous work and safety in our area,” he said.
He said that the next budget would focus on safety and traffic calming measures as there was a “long list” that needed to be completed, which the community had been waiting on for many years. He said it was better to spend money on capital projects that lasted for a long time and that the needs of each ward was different.
Resident Ariff Hamid, said that the ward allocation of R1 million needed to increase because everything else increased as well.
“Everything has gone up. The City needs to increase it and back-date it for the last budget. Everything is so expensive,” he said.
Chairwoman of Pinate Estate Ratepayers Association, Karima Allie, said that pupils leaving school or going to school littered as they walked down the street.
“They throw their rubbish anywhere, especially chips packets. I am really interested in the CID,” she said.
Mr Badroodien added that the wish list for the area included traffic calming measures in Blomvlei Road and on the corner of Turfhall and Hanover Park Avenue as well. Tarring of all concrete roads, and the installation of flood lights in flat courts, were also on the wish list.