Komani residents are angry that their two public swimming pools have been out of service for a decade.
The pool in Top Town suburb and the Dumpy Adams public pool in Victoria Park township had been vandalised and are now a hangout for criminals, they say.
Daily Dispatch visited both pools this week.
The Dumpy Adams pool has no water and the Dispatch saw five men smoking drugs at the dilapidated building.
The dressing-rooms are piled with refuse and have been vandalised.
The conditions are worse at the Top Town public pool, where all the windows and toilets at the facility have been vandalised and are broken, and the area is in a mess.
Victoria Park resident Maxwell Levine said he grew up in Komani and the pool was the community’s place to relax in summer.
“The Dumpy Adams Sport Complex used to be the best complex throughout the district.
“The problems started more than 10 years ago when people started to vandalise the complex. The pool stopped working as it was not maintained and was ignored by the municipality,” he said. Levine said the facility was now a hangout for drug addicts and thieves.
“We understand that the municipality is in a financial crisis, but the pool has been in that state for the past 10 years and nothing has been done,” he said.
He said this was the situation with many recreational facilities in Komani.
“The municipality does not care about our facilities and instead of taking care of them, they are deteriorating and at the end there will be no sport and place to relax in this town.
“Since our democracy, this town has been the same and nothing has been done to improve it,” he said.
Top Town resident Dawie Karnekamp said: “Our children have no place to practise how to swim and have nothing to do because that place kept us busy.”
Enoch Mgijima municipality spokesperson Gcobani Msindwana said one of the pools was damaged and needed expensive, specialised repair work.
“We are currently sourcing funding from other departments and stakeholders.
“The municipality closed them to secure them from further damage and hopefully we can repair them for the benefit of our community,” said Msindwana.
He apologised for the inconvenience but stated that the safety of the community and the facility was of paramount importance...