Sixty-two percent of complaints in Sub-council 12 which are reported to the City of Cape Town’s customer relations department, are for water and sanitation-related issues.
This is according to the City of Cape Town’s C3 report, presented by City official Pat Lockwood, at the recent Sub-council 12 meeting held at the Lentegeur Chambers.
Electricity complaints made up 15% of the complaints, while 9% of them were about solid waste matters. The City’s contact centre, established in September 2003, provides a single point of entry for residents and businesses to report matters relating to property valuations, motor vehicle registration, traffic fines, water and sanitation, solid waste, electricity and roads, as well as general enquiries.
According to the report, in Sub-council 12, 10 327 complaints were lodged between January and May, 1 059 of which were complaints about residents having no water or having problems with their water management devices. A total of 289 of these came from Ward 79, 405 from Ward 82, 153 from Ward 78 and 212 from Ward 81.
Ms Lockwood said residents could lodge their complaints by calling the contact centre, emailing the City, going to one of the City’s offices or via the City’s website.
At the meeting she demonstrated how residents could monitor the progress of their complaints after having logged it via the web portal which can be found in fault reporting (C3) section on the website.
Sub-council 12 chairperson and councillor for Ward 82, Sheval Arendse, said in Tafelsig, there were about 21 blocks where street lights had been off since the storm in June.
“Residents are concerned about the street lights that are off because they have to walk to work and school in the dark. They are getting mugged and attacked in the dark. These blocks have more than one street, the lights being off is a safety hazard to young and old. It means that there are more robberies in the area,” he said.
Danny Christians, councillor for Ward 81, said residents were logging complaints but are not being serviced and asked whether complaints were escalated if residents called in more than once about the same issue. “For example if there is an electricity issue, 50 people call in, will this case be addressed faster? Our residents are waiting far too long for services to be rendered,” he said.
Ms Lockwood said the first step would be logging the complaint via the call centre, email or telephone.
The centre then puts it on the system, from where it goes to the dispatch centre and then it is assigned to a team.
When the issue is addressed the issue will be flagged as closed.
“We receive 80 to 100 calls a day from people across the city. We are encouraging residents to use the portal, because with the portal you are able to track the progress of your complaint. Regarding the street lights in Tafelsig, it will be looked into,” she said.
The customer relations department can be contacted on 0860 103 089.