Fed-up Rishi Pooran of Glenhills in KwaZulu-Natal got so tired of officials ignoring complaints about potholes that he decided to take matters into his own hands – and planted banana trees in the holes to draw attention to the problem.
The North Coast Courier reported that he had encouraged others to follow suit in their neighbourhoods as a way of drawing attention to the poor state of roads.
‘Whenever you see a pothole plant a tree, preferably a banana tree, as our town is now becoming a banana republic,’ he says in a Facebook post.
‘This is my challenge to all residents who are sick and tired of the poor service delivery by KwaDukuza municipality and iLembe District municipality. Our municipality did the Jerusalema challenge, so this is my challenge.
‘Let’s not sit back because our officials from the municipality … don’t drive in our areas. They live in estates and do not know the condition of our roads. Once they find all of these trees in all of the potholes maybe someone will take action.’
Municipal spokesperson Sipho Mkize responded: ‘Following reports that emanated from a social media post, our technicians and myself visited the affected areas and our findings were that there are burst pipes that the district municipality needs to fix before we can attempt to do any works. The matter was not reported to us as KwaDukuza Municipality, so we wish to desist (sic) any suggestion that says we were told and kept quiet. We wish to place it on record that other potholes where there is (sic) no burst pipe issues have been attended to in the same community.’
Mkize said he understood ‘communities are restless when it comes to such problems’; the municipality urged people ‘to refrain from installing objects in potholes’.