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The City of Johannesburg Executive Mayor of Johannesburg, Councillor Mpho Moerane, together with Members of the Mayoral Committee (MMCs) made headway in accelerating critical service delivery in Alexandra.

The City’s leadership took the Accelerated Service Delivery Programme to Alexandra in Region E on Saturday, 02 October 2021, following complaints from residents about power cuts due to a vandalised mini-substation, illegal dumping, as well as faulty streetlights and blocked stormwater drains.

Mayor Moerane and his MMCs began the oversight visit, which is designed to ensure service delivery progress in Johannesburg communities, with a demand for feedback from the Region E Regional Director on recent commitments made by officials during a recent visit in the region by the late Mayor Jolidee Matongo.

When the feedback indicated that only 50% of the undertakings made had been delivered on, a timeline of next Thursday was given to officials to ensure that all that was promised to residents at the previous oversight visit was fulfilled.

One of the undertakings was the relocation of recyclers who had taken over a whole street in a neighbourhood with bonded houses in Lombardy and turned it into what resembles a dumpsite - with the street fully covered in flattened plastic bottles.

“The relevant officials have until Thursday to relocate the recyclers to a location already identified for the move and belongs to the municipality. The timeline emphasis on Thursday is based on a decision that from Friday, the Joburg Metro Police Department is expected to enforce bylaws in the affected area in Lombardy to ensure that it is not taken over by recyclers again,” Mayor Moerane said.

“It can not be that property owners who possibly have worked all their lives to pay off their bonds are not protected from actions of others that devalue their hard-earned properties as it has been the case in Lombardy. As a City, we need to protect them by enforcing bylaws in this case while also ensuring that we assist the recyclers to operate within the law and do not violate others’ rights,” he said.

The Mayor and MMCs went on to plant trees in the sport centre and handed over food trees that included lemon, peach and apricots trees from City Parks and Zoo to residents to encourage them to plant food gardens to fight poverty. The leaders went on to attend to streetlights repairs in the Alexandra township before the cleaning of street pavements littered with dirt.

The Joburg Roads Agency (JRA) was also in the township to unblock stormwater drains. The Agency indicated that there was a backlog in unblocking stormwater drains that caused floods during rainy season in the area due to a shortage of the required specialised equipment for the function.

Mayor Moerane said: “The directive given to JRA was that they seek assistance from other regions with the equipment required for the job while they procure the necessary equipment to unblock the drains as a matter of agency, especially as the rainy season is upon us.”

The oversight visit ended with a walkabout awareness drive in the streets of Alexandra that saw the City’s leaders encourage residents and businesses to keep the township clean and safe for healthy living in the community.

Mayor Moerane is expected to conduct the weekly oversight visits to other regions of the City in the coming weeks accompanied by his MMCs; MMC for Community Development, Cllr Margaret Arnolds, MMC for Group Corporate and Shared Services, Cllr Loyiso Masuku; MMC for Development Planning, Cllr Thapelo Amad, MMC for Environment and Infrastructure Services, Cllr Tania Oldjohn, MMC for Public Safety, Cllr Mally Mokoena, MMC for Transport, Cllr Nonhlanhla Makhuba, MMC for Economic Development, Cllr Thomas Mofokeng, MMC for Health and Social Development, Cllr Eunice Mgcina, MMC for Finance, Cllr Matshidiso Mfikoe, and MMC for Housing, Cllr Mlungisi Mabaso.  

Issued by The City of Johannesburg