“If we knew how bad the service delivery would become, we would have started our businesses in another city.”
This is the view of local business owners in Wilsonia who say the state of the roads, sewage overflows, dumping and lack of bush clearing, and grass cutting in the area is crippling their businesses.
Brian van Niekerk, owner of Rhino Industrial Park on Rob de Lange Road in Wilsonia said lack of service delivery is costing him R200,000 a month.
Van Niekerk and his team are patching potholes and doing bush clearing and grass cutting from their own funds to mitigate some of the service delivery challenges but in the long term this will become too costly.
Van Niekerk said rental agencies had advised him that given the lack of services, tenants would be unwilling to rent or even view his premises.
Van Niekerk said: “We have been trying to maintain the road ourselves for the past few years because if we did not, the tenants wouldn’t even be able to gain access to the premises.
“There is raw sewage running across the road that is washing the road away and forcing tenants and their staff to drive and walk through raw sewage to get to work.
“The overgrown bushes encourage illegal dumping and encroach onto the lanes and every two to three months, cables are stolen, resulting in sewage overflows.”
Tenant and owner of Border Logistics, Colin Reddy, said that his operations were bleeding R100-R150 000 every month on maintenance to vehicles for that were damaged by the state of the roads in Wilsonia.
Reddy said the state of service delivery in the area had decreased in the last four years to the extent that they had begun discouraging clients from visiting their offices.
Reddy said: “We are tired of calling the municipality.
“We have been complaining for almost five years and although they dispatch someone, it’s never a lasting solution.
“The replaced cables get stolen again and any pothole patching done is washed away with the heavy rains.
“We are paying huge licensing fees, almost R2m a year, but we don’t see any of this invested back into the infrastructure.”
Other tenants said the sewage overflows, increased dumping and lack of bush clearing presented safety and health concerns for their staff, who are targeted before or after work by thieves using the bushes for cover.
One tenant said: “Rob de Lange Road is hell. We have tried everything we can and now we need the municipality to do what they are paid to do.
“People dump anything here from washing machines to dead animals.”
Another tenant said he has phoned every municipality number he could find but was told last year that it would take two years before the municipality could do pothole patching and bush clearing.
He said: “All we want is for the municipality to fix the road, appoint a security guard to protect the sewage infrastructure from being stolen and erect a barrier that will prevent people from dumping.”
Border Kei Chamber of Business executive director, Lizelle Maurice said that the biggest impact on effective service delivery is corruption and mismanagement of staff.
The chamber is working with the municipality to find ways to upgrade ageing sewer lines, intensifying waste management and recycling efforts, enforcing bylaws, and finding alternatives to load-shedding.
Maurice said: “Cities compete for tourists and investment and if a city is not well run, people and businesses migrate to other cities where they see that municipalities are getting the basics right.
“Tourists and investors like to come to a city that is clean and organised and if we don’t have services in place those with spending power will go elsewhere.”
Ntiyiso Consulting said that municipalities need to prioritise services for businesses, industry, and large residential estates because they contribute to a significant portion of the municipal revenue.
They said: “These consumers are known as large consumer groups as they form the backbone of the local economy because they create jobs and contribute to city growth.
“ensuring uninterrupted service delivery to these clients becomes critical if the municipality wants to maintain its rates and taxpayer base.”
Last week, Steers in Nahoon became the latest business to announce its closure, with Penny Smith, group marketing manager of the Page Group saying the lack of consumers available income to spend in the current economy, coupled with local service delivery issues put too much strain on their operations.
Smith said: “South Africans are feeling the pinch, with retail spend being at an all-time low.
“Our group of businesses is going through this process and learning to adapt in these very uncertain and ever-changing times.
“We are definitely seeing a rising cost of doing business, including municipal service delivery, but we have to remain optimistic and ready for whatever the future holds for us,” Smith said.
