THE HUGE INTERNATIONAL COMPANY GROWTHPOINT PROPERTIES IS BOGGED DOWN BY AN INABILITY TO FIX THE MEN'S AND WOMEN'S TOILETS IN ITS 90 TENANT MALL

 Dear Readers,

Norbert Sasse a CEO in a million

            In Growthpoint’s Long Beach Mall in Cape Town there are a mere 9 men’s toilet cubicles for a Mall that has three supermarkets, as many banks and numerous other shops and businesses and three of them have been ‘out of order’ for as much as a month or more.

           The Mall manager Stefan Roodt told me they are waiting for the maintenance contractor to get the missing parts. Don’t laugh the problems are piddling little ones. They are waiting for bolts for a simple door lock which is a bolt that you just push across and a toilet roll holder that somebody has either nicked or broken. The cubicle involving the toilet holder in the men’s side has a huge “Out of Order” sticker on the door while the other two could still be being used by the desperate, although the toilet is a bit far from the door to enable a squatter to use his foot to keep the door closed.

            I have been to the Mall manager’s office twice in the last couple of weeks to complain about the men’s side because in my opinion nine cubicles are far too few in any case for a Mall this size without having three of them out of action. The position is aggravated by the fact that this Mall is near Fish Hoek where a high percentage of people are in the old aged category and they can’t always hold it if they have to go.  I should know as I’m 89.

           And every time I have been given the same pathetic excuse about how they are waiting for the contractor to perform what he is employed to do.

            I’m not so familiar with the women’s side but I was told they also have a missing lock problem on one of their cubicles and that’s more serious for them than it is for the men because the last time I looked they can’t get relief standing up.

A typical toilet roll holder in the
men's side.

            Growthpoint, which has assets in South Africa, Eastern Europe, Australia and the United Kingdom, claims to be the largest Real Estate Investment Trust on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. It owns and manages a portfolio of over 500 property assets locally and internationally. In South Africa its retail, office and individual portfolios feature high quality properties in major metropolitan areas and key development modes. It also has a 50% stake in Cape Town’s Victoria and Alfred seafront development.

            With all these impressive credentials you would think that Growthpoint would have been able to fix a faulty bog not in a month, not in a week but in couple of hours especially when there are so few of them in this huge Mall.

However Growthpoint’s CEO Norbert Sasse has just joined my one in a million class of CEOs. I could not believe this. I sent him an email at 8.23 pm on Monday evening. Guess when he replied …at 10.01 pm that same night. He is unlikely to have ever heard of me before and faulty toilets must be virtually off the map of his priorities.

His full email address and other contact details are available on Google for anybody who wants to contact him and unlike so many other CEO’s he doesn’t pass the buck down the line when confronted with one of my emails. Congratulations Norbert for being in that rare Super Category.  

Any way this is what he said in his email:

Good evening, Jon.

Thanks for bringing this to my attention. 

I’ll be escalating this with a view to resolving the issue as soon as possible.

Please feel free to send me another message if the issue isn’t speedily resolved.

 Regards.

 Norbert Sasse.

 Sorry I must go now I’ve got to run.

            Regards,

           Jon, an 89 year old Consumer Watchdog, who hopes this massive company, will finally get the point before I have an accident.

P.S.