By Ivor Markman

Irish property developer Ken Denton, who has for some years been harassed by the Mandela Bay Development Agency for the condition of some of his Port Elizabeth buildings, has beaten the municipality to the count by fixing the 107-year-old clock on the old Post Office building behind the City Hall – before the city has fixed its clocks.

Retired turner-machinist Roshé Wolmarans inspected the inner mechanical workings and discovered one of the teeth in the old mechanical clock was broken.

Wolmarans said the post office clock had been out of order for at least four years. “The gear broke because the little fingers are very thin. I think somebody broke it off way back,” he said.

Wolmarans took the broken gear to an engineering shop, where it took three hours to be repaired.

“The clock is now running fine. It just needs to be wound up regularly and oiled once in a while,” he said.

Denton said: “The clock, like other articles of particular historic importance, we are interested in repairing and putting into order. We are very pleased Wolmarans is here with the skills to do it and to maintain it.”

The municipality has come in for criticism from members of the public for not ensuring the proper working condition of the clocks on the City Hall and the Campanile.

In July, Nelson Mandela Bay municipal spokesman Kupido Baron said it would cost R200 000 to fix the problem. “We have identified R200 000 before going to tender, (to fix the clocks) in the next two months.”

He said on Wednesday, however, this was only an estimate and not based on information provided by a clock maker or any individual who dealt with these types of clocks regularly.

Wolmarans said he had given two verbal quotes to the municipality – one for R1 000 to fix the City Hall clock and the other for R3 000 to fix the Campanile clock, but both had been turned down.

“The City Hall clock only needed batteries. I quoted R1 000 to replace the batteries but Omar (Mallick) said, ‘Don‘t worry, we‘ll fix it ourselves‘,” said Wolmarans.

“It became clear that the municipality is in a position to fix the clock itself,” said Baron. “The clock at City Hall is working, but is losing time. Only minor adjustments are necessary to fix this and it will be done as soon as possible.

“Wolmarans was not the only person who showed an interest in the City Hall clock. The municipality only accepts formal (written) tenders,” said Baron.

“However, since it is clear that the municipality can fix the clocks with its current human resources, it is not sensible to give the work to outside service providers.

“The City Hall clock is working after the facilities management directorate, a division of the corporate administration directorate, replaced the battery and got an electrician to look at a possible electrical fault.

“Municipal officials will meet next week to discuss necessary steps to fix the Campanile, a very important landmark in the city. We are all very excited about the prospect of having these clocks tick away as we count down to better things,” he said.

The Herald