THE Ottery Concerned Peoples Forum (OCPF) handed a memorandum over to the City of Cape Town’s office in Ottery which highlighted grievances around the upgrade of council-owned flats.

Residents were supposed to embark on a protest march to the offices, but this did not unfold, as fears of ‘police brutality’ scared off residents.

People’s Post reported on the upgrade, “Marble flats (24 August 2010)”, which highlighted Mayor Dan Plato launching the City’s refurbishment programme for its rental stock, known as the Community Residential Unit (CRU) upgrade project.

All 43 of the four-storey blocks between Daniel Avenue and Ivan Road are in line for an upgrade, with repairs to blocked sewers, plumbing installations, deteriorating staircases, leaking roofs, fascias, gutters, down pipes, doors and windows, costing the city around R100 million.

However, residents now feel that contractors have been showing “poor workmanship” and using inferior materials and causing disruptions for residents of the flats. George Martin, secretary for the Ottery Concerned Peoples Forum (OCPF), highlighted that many of the residents were required to move out of their flats after making improvements over the years.

“Some people have made improvements to their flats, but when they were required to move out, all these improvements were damaged and replaced with these inferior materials, something we were not promised initially,” says Martin. The group of residents handed the memorandum over to a representative of the Mayor, listing grievances.

“We must be getting something fantastic for the amount of money being spent on the project, but this is not happening and these contractors are just doing what they want,” Martin said.

In an unusual turn of events, none of the “infuriated” residents turned up for the march on Saturday morning. Councillor Ernest Sonneberg accepted the memorandum, on the day.

When People’s Post arrived on the scene where the march was to take place, it had been pouring with rain. Once the rain cleared, none of the residents came forward to take part in the march.

Martin told People’s Post that when he went around to the residents telling them about the march, they had expressed concerns about police brutality.

“People are afraid because of what the police might do, even though the march is legal. We went through all the right channels to set this march up. The residents read about how police react to marches and see it on TV, and what happened at the Rondebosch Common is still fresh in people’s minds.

“People don’t want to get hurt but they want to be heard,” he says. . City comment on the matter will be obtained for a follow-up article.