Trollip has cost DA future votes in Bay
RE the article in which mayor Athol Trollip stated that current ratepayers must subsidise and pay for the poor, which therefore justifies that Port Elizabeth has the highest property rates and taxes tariffs in the country. Our electricity tariffs are the second highest.
Mr Trollip, your views and total disregard of the ratepaying public have placed you and the DA-led municipality on a very dangerous collision course that will definitely see an acceleration of growing discontent among the citizens and business owners who have voted the DA-led coalition into power.
From where we sit, we see a different type of greed emerging, as opposed to the usual corruption and irregular spending under the previous ANC-led council.
Under the DA-led coalition, mayor Trollip appears to be hellbent and unrelenting in squeezing every last drop out of the municipal income base without any thought. So where is all this money going?
Our city is getting filthier and illegal dumping is out of control. The health and sanitation departments are in shambles. The traffic department/ municipal police, including the ghost traffic squad, spend their time targeting “soft and easy targets” to maximise income generated from fines instead of focusing on serious crimes and traffic violations.
Minibus taxis are a law unto themselves, with total disregard for red traffic lights and stop streets, stopping wherever they want, blocking the safe and free flow of traffic without being apprehended, with traffic officers mostly turning a blind eye.
We see no real measures being executed in dealing with our crumbling infrastructure. Water leaks are left unattended for weeks after being repeatedly reported.
Ratepayers received the shock of their lives with the recent exorbitant rates increases, and when we question or appeal this, we only get shut out despite the mayor’s promises that all appeals would be handled in the appropriate manner. Mayor Trollip, in case you forgot, Port Elizabeth citizens earn lower salaries than our counterparts in Cape Town, Durban or Gauteng in general.
Job security in our metro is under tremendous pressure, with many ratepaying citizens from all areas driven to the edge and struggling to keep their heads above water. Many spouses have been retrenched in the last couple of months, adding to the growing financial household burden.
Yet all you care about is how fast you can leverage the maximum amount of fees, fines, rates and taxes from us struggling citizens to boost the financial fiscus of our city.
The current pressure on ratepayers cannot be maintained, with many domestic workers and gardeners losing their jobs, and property owners falling into arrears with bonds, school fees and municipal charges, and facing the real possibility of losing their homes.
You state that this is our city’s legacy of the past, but Port Elizabeth used to be a stable city with a much lower than average unemployment rate 25 years ago. Streets were clean and everything worked.
The influx of rural people over the last 20 years and our worsening economic crisis brought on by the corrupt and incompetent ruling elite has caused a lot of these socioeconomic problems.
So why must we foot the bill to this extent, while everything else is falling apart? Contributing to a fair and sustainable plan to subsidise the poor is morally acceptable, but squeezing blood from a stone by punishing the ratepayers to this degree and literally taking food off the table for some, is placing our city on a disastrous course.
Mr Trollip, you have lost my support, as well as the vote and support of many others who feel the same about your unapproachable style of total disregard for hardworking, tax-paying citizens of this metro. Buckling under pressure (name
withheld), Port Elizabeth