Whats happening in our country? It seems everybody complains about service delivery and after anxiously waiting for a service to be rendered, they stuff ip completely.
A few months ago, I contacted the local municipality to have a few tree branches cut down. The branches were growing over on to my property and was so huge, it could withstand the weight of three or four fully grown adults. I received a reply email informing me the matter will be attended to as soon as they can. A week later, the city was out and about attending to their duties but did not touch the tree branches in question. I emailed the person that replied to me and got no response. After sending the person about 5 emails, I decided to call the office personally to handle this matter. I got transferred to the deputy manager for environmental services and informed her of my unhappiness in dealing with her department as after 5 emails sent to them, I am yet to receive a response. The deputy manager informed me that the person I emailed only handled new cases and my matter was meant for someone else. How's that for service, all that person could have done was forward my email off to the relevant person but instead just read it and then deleted it. I was then informed that it would take a few weeks for someone to come and do the job which I was quite happy with.
A few weeks later, while having breakfast with my mom who was visiting from Cape Town, I heard a loud crashing sound. I ran outside to see what had happend and found a bunch of guys standing next to a huge branch. The reason why I could see them was because the huge branch smashed through my wall. I asked the guys what happend and their answer was they were told to cut the tree down. I asked to see the manager or any superior but there was nobody around but he would be back shortly. I went back inside and discovered I had no tv reception. It turns out, when the branch fell, it knocked my satellite dish resulting in a loss of signal.
A short while later, a guy arrived who I thought was the manager. I informed him what had happend and he just stared at me, not even an apology. He looked at me walked away and spoke to the workers, returned and said he will repair the wall. I asked him about the satellite dish and he replied with a question asking me if its broken. I informed him its not physically broken but out of signal and he's answer was that because it's not physically broken, he's not liable. We argued for a while and I then decided to call the municipality. I then found out the person I was speaking to is actually a owner of a business and he has been contracted by the municipality to cut down the trees. The municipality told me to inform this guy that if I am not happy, he will not be paid. The owner quickly made haste to get the issues sorted out. The tv company came out and repaired the satellite dish and he had the wall repaired.
After the tv company repaired the satellite dish, they informed me that I will still be having problems as the bracket was bent and the metal is now weak. I got hold of the owner of the tree felling company and informed him and he has not gotten back to me and he no longer takes my calls. I called the municipality and they said that it has got nothing to do with them. They also said that this is why they contract outside companies as its less work for them and that they are not liable for any damage.
How pathetic is that!
