Rejuvenation of the inner city:

13 Feb 2017 in Where We Govern

A clean and well-functioning inner city goes a long way to restoring confidence in its ability to attract investment, both domestically and internationally. As such, the City has installed an inner-city depot which will occupy itself with ensuring that we rejuvenate and revitalise the inner city, which in recent times has become a victim to littering and a general state of uncleanliness due to a multitude of reasons.

 

Just this past weekend, there have been visible efforts to restore the city’s cleanliness, and this will go some way to enhance its image and instil confidence in Tshwane as a city that is clean, safe, and efficient and open for business.

 

This inner-city depot is not limited to restoring the city’s cleanliness but will also ensure that the inner city is safe for the people who commute and already do business in Tshwane.

 

Councillor Msimanga said: “We want to attract investment. We want this city to be a place where people can play, live and work. You cannot do that if one building is up to standard but the next building looks like a slum. We are going to have to clean that. [How can we have] 20 people sharing a two-bedroom flat? We are going to check and correct that.

 

“We are also going to engage with property owners. We give them a timeframe to fix and upgrade their buildings. Failure to do that, the City will do it and they will get the bill. It doesn’t help to have people staying in [plush suburbs] renting out these properties but they don’t even care what is happening.

 

 

“We will also identify buildings owned by people who are no longer in the country, who receive rent at the end of each month, but they don’t care whether there is maintenance or no maintenance of their buildings.”

 

Bringing all these elements together – including safety and infrastructure, and better leveraging of our traffic sector – will go a long way to furthering the strides we have already made in bringing about the change our residents so desperately need.

 

While we do understand and appreciate the frustrations of some of our residents, we are grateful for their patience and want to assure them that this change is coming to all parts of Tshwane and that no people will be forgotten. It will just take some time to turn back the clock and correct the poor management of 20 years of ANC administration in this city.