By Nangamso Mabindla

Buffalo City Municipality's new customer care centre will make it easier for residents to communicate with the municipality, Nontobeko Mafu, the city's general manager for strategic support, said at the launch of the centre this week.

The centre provides residents with a single point of contact for logging problems and complaints. These will then be channelled to the relevant departments.

The aim of setting up the centre was to find quick and efficient solutions to customer complaints. The beauty of the system, Mrs Mafu said, was that it gave residents an easy way to follow up on their problems until they had been settled.

The centre is a joint initiative between Buffalo City Municipality and the Swedish International Development Agency.

Customers can contact the centre to lodge complaints such as:

• dumping;
• grass cutting;
• noise pollution; and
• electricity supply problems.

There are five staffers on hand to help customers. This complement will be increased according to demand.

The staff members recently went to Sweden for training because that country had been using similar systems for some time with good results, Mrs Mafu said.

In addition to the new centre, the municipality also launched its website yesterday as another tool to keep people informed and educated about the city.

Speaker Zukisa Fafu-Hobana, who officially launched the website, said it was "a great tool to assist us to close the chasm between the municipality and its customers. People can learn more about the municipality and the city's attractions."

Buffalo City needed to be known throughout the world and the website would be the world's window to Buffalo City, she added.