Drakenstein Municipality (DM) finds it disappointing that Daan van Leeuwen Boomkamp and the Drakenstein Farm Watch (DFW) decided to follow the media and social media route to make unfortunate statements about DM’s Fire and Rescue Service, while he knows he has an open door with the municipality.
In his letter in the Paarl Post of 25 January he makes certain untrue, unfounded statements about our Fire and Rescue Service. Let me set the record straight.
DM’s Fire and Rescue Service is fully equipped, its vehicles are in good working order and its firefighters well-trained, vastly experienced and professional. Our Fire and Rescue Service is fully capable of doing the job we are legally mandated to do for the people of Drakenstein. We are also passionate about developing, upgrading and improving our service, and are working hard to constantly modernise it to make it even more sophisticated.
DM has always had a good working relationship with DFW, and we often collaborate in fighting fires. In fact, we have a memorandum of understanding in place with DFW to facilitate cooperation when we require additional resources. We work together with DFW, but always within the rules and ambit of existing legislation.
That is why we find it disheartening that DFW follows the media route to note concerns. We also have quite a few concerns about DFW, but will not raise these through the media. This is not what partners do. Partners respect each other and honour their different roles and responsibilities. They sit around a table and flesh solutions out, not wash their dirty laundry in public.
DM’s Fire and Rescue Service has excellent relationships and constructive partnerships in place with various organisations in the firefighting space, including the fire services of the Cape Winelands District Municipality and neighbouring municipalities. If need be, we can call on them to ensure fires are extinguished as speedily and safely as possible.
We regard DFW as one of these partners. We invite Van Leeuwen Boomkamp rather to talk to us directly, as we have done many times in the past, and join us in delivering a safe and sustainable firefighting service in a good cooperative spirit.
