Montevideo resident, Lungelo Booi. Photo by Mary-Anne Gontsana.
5 September 2012
Montevideo is a small suburb just outside of Gugulethu, nestled in Montana. With mostly a coloured population, it faces the N2 freeway and is in between a bus depot and a school for the physically disabled.
This article is part of our focus on wards.
“Montevideo is a hidden middle class area, most of its residents are employed. The number one worry is housebreaking. That is the number one crime in the area,” said ward councillor Nas Abrahams (DA).
Abrahams has been a ward councillor for nine years and is responsible for Montevideo and the surrounding area.
“Being councillor, you have an oversight role, you deal with policy formulation, checking what needs to be rebuked or formulated in a certain area. With Montevideo, burglary is quite frequent because it faces the N2. People usually jump over these slabs or remove them to gain entry,” said Abrahams.
He added that the majority of people who stay home during the day are the elderly, which makes these houses easy targets.
“Years ago there was a neighbourhood watch but it dissolved, I then requested that the metro police and the South African Police Services do late night patrols around the area and random checks. I want to erect a wall with barbed wire now and a budget of R100 000 had been made available for this but finance told me that erecting a wall was not the city’s mandate. I then approached the provincial legislature, who told me the same thing. Last month I asked the sub-councillor to reopen this and find out whose mandate it was to erect a wall in Montevideo, because Montevideo is a city council area,” explained Abrahams.
Lungelo Booi, who lives in Montevideo’s Toledo Road, said that he agreed that criminals crossed the freeway to get to his area. “On the other side of Montevideo is Gugulethu. There are stairs from the informal settlement over there that lead to a bridge which is connected to the freeway. Once you go down the bridge, you meet the road that is directly opposite Montevideo. When people get there, they jump over the fence. There is only one way into Montevideo and it is through Montana. It is a nice area, very quiet and intimate, most people don’t even know it. But it’s a bit difficult if you do not have a car over here because it is far from everything,” said Booi.
Asked whether he knew who the ward councillor of Montevideo was, he said no.
“I have coordinators who contact me regularly and report to me if there are any problems that I need to address in Montevideo. As councillors, we are usually introduced to our communities during election time. Montevideo is an affluent community, not like poor ones where councillors have to arrange community meetings and so forth,” said Abrahams.
Joshua Hendricks, also a resident in Montevideo, said he had heard about the councillor but has never met him. “I have been living here for two years now, but I have not met Mr Abrahams yet. Montevideo is a very nice area and I would recommend it to people,” he said.
Amongst his responsibilities, Abrahams makes sure that service delivery duties such as cleaning roads and the sewage system are performed. As part of a four year plan, Abrahams said they were busy with compiling their ward plans. “There is nothing really that can done in Montevideo in terms of building structures, as there are no open spaces. What we need to do now is focus on getting funding for the erection of the wall.”