Residents in the north of Pretoria said they have lost faith in the City of Tshwane and have taken service delivery into their own hands by repairing roads and removing rubbish from streets.
Last year, local estate agent Quentin Meyer started #onssalself to clean up the streets of Pretoria North after he came across a post of raw bones dumped in a field.
“I always ask my clients why they want to sell their house and nine out of 10 times clients say Pretoria North is not what it used to be,” he explained.
Doing City’s jobs
Meyer said now they clean the parks and the streets, cut the grass, pick up the litter and sweep the roads. Meyer said he didn’t care if the city or the councillor was upset about it because he couldn’t stand the dirty streets.
The hot-spot streets include President Steyn Street, Gerrit Maritz Street, Rachel de Beer Street, Suider Street and Stasie Street. “When we clean up the parks on a Monday, we find drug needles and drug bags,” he said.
Meyer said the homeless people in the area contributed to the filth on the streets. “They empty the dustbins on the pavement to look for food and leave the rubbish as is and go to the next dustbin,” he said.
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Meyer said the rubbish on main roads was left for days and weeks before the city came to collect it. “We clean up 100 to 200 black bags a week,” he said. In January, the group collected 800 black bags of rubbish.
Clean up
“We cleaned Earl Street in Dorandia and filled 15 black bags of rubbish picked up on one street. It’s a big problem,” he said. City of Tshwane spokesperson Sipho Stuurman said the city emptied the swivel bins daily. “There are unscrupulous food businesses that do not want to apply for the city’s waste management services.
We will write to these businesses and will inform the Tshwane Metro Police Department to issue fines,” he said. Stuurman said the city would also attend to the root cause of the problem, which was illegal dumping.
The 80-year-old Leon van Langenhoven from Bon Accord said he couldn’t wait any longer for the city. “We started repairing 82 potholes stretched over half a kilometre in River Street,” he said. Residents filled the holes with stones as a temporary measure.
Councillor Gé Breytenbach said the street was scheduled to be repaired at the beginning of February, but this was postponed due to the heavy rain.
