Maseko decries ‘dubious’ contractors
ALEXANDRA – Long-serving councillor urges for transparency in awarding of contracts.
Councillor Ambi Maseko is gatvol with conditions at the Helen Joseph Women’s Hostel and attributed them to contractors and Joburg City Council officials.
The matter also attracted the attention of many political parties and the South African Human Rights Commission to no avail.
Maseko of Ward 105, who has resided at the hostel for years through successive administrations of her party, the ANC, and now the DA, is still subjected to the hostel’s inhumane conditions with thousands of others. She bore the wrath of residents during her party’s rule and now tables are turned.
She said, “The place is a cash cow for contractors acting in cahoots with corrupt officials who allocate them with the scope of work only known to themselves and not the councillor or any civic authority.”
Distraught Maseko added, “As a result, conditions have worsened with contracts dished out without monitoring, resulting in incomplete projects, sewage spilling continuously into the courtyard and blocking entrances, including to kitchens, communal stoves do not work causing residents to queue to cook and delay in going to work, incessant power cuts, taps leak continuously even after they have been fixed and many more problems.”
She said the lack of supervision of contractors and by-law enforcement encourages offenders to do as they please, constructing shacks everywhere, fouling the outer wall of the hostel and blocking passageways and public spaces with illegal structures. “I requested the Metro police to remove a container placed illegally in a public space. They once removed similar structures but they complained of lack of a budget to do so.”
Maseko said the lack of consultation on projects for the hostel is also causing tensions among residents. “Previously, they were engaged as labour to contractors on a rotational basis but now, contractors bring or choose their own people.”
She also attributed the problem to political machinations which, she said, creates hostile relationships among residents with potential for wide-scale conflict. “Sometimes, the contractors are engaged on an emergency basis to avoid regular engagement processes and monitoring but they still don’t complete the projects and leave without informing the councillor.”
Maseko asked different departments to provide her and the residents’ committee scopes and budgets of all contracts to assist them to monitor and ensure completion of projects on the council’s behalf and residents’ expectations.
Maseko is also worried that the rehabilitation work of the hostel as well as of its counterpart, Madala Hostel, at R20 million each, still hasn’t started – almost halfway into the financial year. This after a recent statement in Alex News by the DA’s proportional representative councillor Shadrack Mkhonto who said the work would soon commence. Mkhonto also decried various untenable housing challenges in the township.
