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Councillor Ashley Sauls, Member of the Mayoral Committee for Health and Social Development, recently attended a soil turning event at the Yetta Nathan ECD Training Centre. The development of the training centre will enhance the already impressive facility.

Speaking on behalf of the Johannesburg Development Agency, the health department’s implementing agent, Project Manager Akhona Mnukwa said that the project was scheduled to take place over two phases to extend the multipurpose facility.

Having appointed the Helifax Agisanang Joint Venture, Mnukwa further explained that the appointment value for phase one is R40.9 million. Phase one will include external works, bulk earthworks and demolition, with scheduled work to begin at handover today, to be completed by 31 October 2022. Phase two, budgeted at about R37.5 million, is set to begin on 1 November 2022, with the entire project, with a total budget of R78.5 million, expected to be completed by 30 June 2023.

Cllr Sauls said: “Any society must be judged by the way that it treats the most vulnerable, particularly our elderly and our children.”

The MMC took the opportunity to express the importance of ECD in the lives of children since “we prioritise our children because they will inherit this world and hopefully be wiser someday than we are now. They are our living legacies, and that is why I am so proud today to launch the construction of the new Yetta Nathan ECD Centre.”

Yetta Nathan ECD training centre dates back to the Second World War. It became a crèche in 1953. The Yetta Nathan ECD Training Facility became the City of Johannesburg’s first Early Childhood Development Centre in 2003.

The MMC emphasised the importance of executing this project competently, saying “at this point, I want to issue a very friendly but stern encouragement to both the Department of Social Development and the Johannesburg Development Agency as the implementing agents: I will not tolerate any mismanagement of this project because we are that fulcrum, all of us together. Let this be an example of how to run a capital expenditure project by letting this refurbishment take place within budget, be delivered on time and to the highest standards possible, and that every step be executed with military precision.”

Cllr Sauls remained confident that the project would be completed by the next financial year and was looking forward to returning to the facility for the ribbon-cutting ceremony in 2023.

Closing the proceedings, Director of Management Support, Nkele Moumakwa, gave thanks to the MMC and his team, the contractors, JDA, the architects, and the ward councillor for their ongoing contributions, despite having had some “intense” and “heated” meetings at the outset of planning the development. She further agreed to keep open channels of communication with the ward councillor and urged him to give constant feedback to his community.

The MMC later had the privilege of visiting the aquaponics and hydroponics facilities at the Yetta Nathan Centre to understand the role of social development in the agricultural space, and the value of aquaponic and hydroponic farming. He said that the beneficiaries of skills training at these facilities must find themselves better off economically when they have completed their training. In the constant pursuit of improving lives, the MMC urged his team to assist him in looking at ways of achieving this objective.

Issued by The Joburg Office of the MMC for Health and Social Development, Cllr or Ashley Sauls