Residents in the King Sabata Dalindyebo area are using a new EFF-created application to report service delivery problems, labour disputes and other community concerns directly to the party’s KSD structures.
Thetha Mhlali was launched about two weeks ago and has received 20 complaints, according to EFF KSD mayoral candidate Ncedo Kolanisi.
Among the complaints is one from a Ward 33 resident about a vandalised landfill site which was meant to become operational in 2019.
“Those are photos of a landfill site in Ward 33," the complaint reads.
"It was supposed to have started working in 2019. It's now vandalised, though it has security personnel on guard.
“Community members are left with no answers on how this project will be finished and start working.
"To us, this is wasteful expenditure which has to be investigated. We request the EFF's urgent intervention.”
The complaint was subsequently escalated to the relevant municipal office.
Its status on the app says: “We [are] waiting for further explanation and intervention thereof. Oversight will also be conducted by ourselves in due course.”
Another complaint was lodged by a worker at a hardware store in Mthatha who alleged that they were being ill-treated, had no UIF and were not allowed to take lunch.
The status report said EFF councillors and other party representatives conducted an oversight visit on September 23, together with law enforcement.
“Oversight conducted on 23 September by EFF PR councillors, member of provincial legislature who sit in community safety portfolio committee and mayoral candidate," it said.
"This was also a joint operation with law enforcement where we found overwhelming non-compliance with many laws.
"Law enforcement will bring department of labour to the chain of stores for further investigation.”
Kolanisi said the app was intended to provide residents with a platform to report problems they struggled to get addressed through existing channels.
“It also aims at advocating for social justice such as GBV, health care, police and we are able to respond rapidly," he said.
"It also looks at labour issues where workers are ill-treated and so forth, where we go and intervene. The turnaround time is about 24 to 48 hours.”
He said the idea came after a survey found that some residents struggled to travel from rural areas into town to report problems, while others could not get through to municipal officials by phone.
“There was a computer scientist who came and pitched the idea which we liked because the survey we did showed that people are unable to go to town from their village to report faults, or when they call the relevant offices, phones are not picked up,” Kolanisi said.
“At least as the EFF we go and report on their behalf and, where we can as the EFF, we fix it on our own.”
Kolanisi said 15 of the 20 complaints received had been resolved, while five were still being dealt with.
Three complaints, he said, involved gender-based violence, with the alleged perpetrators subsequently arrested.
Other complaints concerned a clinic that allegedly stopped registering patients after 2pm, as well as water and electricity problems.
Kolanisi said complaints were removed from the app once they were resolved and the party hoped eventually to integrate the platform into the municipality after the local government elections.
“The app is free for everybody to use and is available on Playstore to install it as an app instead of using the internet.
"You log everything for free, hence we want to introduce it to the municipality.”