Durban — Shastri Park library users have been forced to use the facility in the dark because of power problems at the library for the past two weeks.
Shastri Park Library 2, Playpark Place, Shastri Park, in ward 51 has been without electricity since May 19, leaving the community to use cellphone torches at the facility.
Phoenix Civic Movement leader Vivian Pillay said the library served scholars, senior citizens and job seekers from the community and surrounding areas of Inanda, Amawoti and Zwelitsha.
“As a result, this has caused severe hardships and inconvenience to the residents because of poor service delivery and ageing infrastructure in the ward.”
Pillay said the lack of service delivery violated people’s rights.
“Section 10 of the Constitution focuses on human dignity, respect and protection of its citizens. Based on this section and contents, it is clear that any failure to protect the hard-earned democratic values by denying people basic services amounts to the violation and contravention of the Constitution, as well as trampling on the rights of the people.”
Pillay said his organisation and other ratepayer and civic organisations had slammed the proposed tariff increases as unaffordable in the present economic climate where residents were struggling to make ends meet.
The eThekwini Municipality has been placed under supervision by the provincial government because it is not competent to administer the R66 billion proposed budget, which is feared will be syphoned off by corruption, tender fraud and mismanagement.
“This proposed budget must be put on hold until there is proper consultation with all stakeholders in eThekwini,” Pillay said.
Ward 51 councillor Maggie Johnson said they only received information from an Expanded Public Works Programme worker that the Shastri Park community library had electricity problems on Monday. Johnson said once this problem was brought to her attention, she made interventions to have it resolved.
“After hearing of the problem, we called the city power call centre, who took down our case and provided us with a reference number to use when we follow up on the case.
“An electricity technician was sent out to the library but only got there after the library was closed.
“He came again this morning (Tuesday), and we are going to check with the library later today, to find out the problem has been fixed,” Johnson said.
“The problem facing Phoenix communities is the lack of service delivery, which is very slow.”
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Daily News