City of Johannesburg Press Statement by Executive Mayor, Cllr Herman Mashaba
Today, I joined officials from Pikitup, City Parks, the Joburg Roads Agency (JRA) and City Power for a multi-departmental clean-up campaign in the Lenasia Central Business District (CBD).
As government, we are tasked with the responsibility of delivering quality services to our residents. Today’s clean-up campaign brings together various entities within the City so as to work with the community to improve Lenasia’s cleanliness. If we want to ensure that the whole of Joburg is open for business, we must encourage our residents to keep their communities clean.
The cleaning campaign held today encompassed the following:
- 30 officials from Pikitup assisted community members with cleaning illegal dumping;
- City Power fixed broken street lights;
- City Parks cut grass; and
- JRA did kerb inlet cleaning to address storm water drainage system challenges.
Yesterday, the JRA already started mending potholes and fixing road signage in Lenasia as a lead-up to today’s campaign.
I am proud to have been part of this initiative, especially since Lenasia contributes vastly to the culture, heritage and economy of Joburg. Under the previous administration, communities such as Lenasia had been forgotten, and infrastructure has been left to decay.
Lenasia is a rapidly growing suburb with shopping malls, churches, mosques, banks and various commercial and industrial sectors. 51% of businesses in Lenasia are within the retail sector.
The Lenasia CBD is also one of the longest existing nodes in the City of Joburg. This community was initially established in the 1950’s, when over 50 Indian families were forcibly moved to Lenasia from areas such as Germiston and Sophia Town.
This was a community born out of the oppression and forced removals of the Apartheid government, but which has been able to create its own identity and thrive under difficult circumstances.
However, like many other business districts, the influx of people seeking opportunities has created an urban management challenge.
As a result, the Lenasia CBD is plagued by numerous environmental health issues, mainly brought on by illegal dumping and a lack of stalls for informal traders. Some of the challenges faced, include:
- Illegal dumping by shop owners after hours;
- Littering by pedestrians;
- Informal traders illegally dump waste water and oil in the storm water channel; and
- Community members illegally dump excess garden and domestic refuse due to the refuse transfer station being inaccessible to residents who do not have a means of transportation.
This cannot continue.
Illegal dumping costs the City R80 million per annum. This is money which should be ploughed back into the community to improve service delivery and infrastructure.
The City generates 1.6 million tons of waste per annum, which is deposited at landfill sites. The landfill sites are running out of airspace, and for this reason, responsible waste management is crucial.
Pikitup currently provide cleaning services to the Lenasia CBD and the entire region by cleaning twice daily (07:00 – 15:30 and 17:00 – 24:00).
It is good to see that 264 889 households across the City is partaking the City’s Separation-At-Source Project, led by Pikitup. Pikitup is currently diverting 20% of waste away from landfill sites, but this is still a long way off the mark of 93% which must be achieved before the City runs out of landfill space by 2040.
We can only reach this target if we all work together.
Pikitup has assured me that they will roll out a separation at source programme for this community as of 1 June 2017. This will ensure that every household in the area receives two refuse bags per week for recyclable material – one for paper and one for mixed materials such as glass, plastic and tins. This will be collected by Pikitup and will ensure that more household waste from this community is recycled.
Shortly after taking office:
- I requested that the normal 135 weekly refuse collection rounds must be restored at all 12 depots as well as street sweeping and litter picking around our City. This has been done.
- We also made R4 million available towards city-wide grass cutting.
In our adjustment budget:
- We allocated R49,2 million to Pikitup to include a third cleaning shift, in an effort to clean up our City;
- We allocated R88 million to the JRA for pothole repairs;
- R15 million were made available for emergency storm water interventions across the City; and
- R9.2 million is allocated towards new Storm Water Management Projects.
With these adjustments, we are already seeing progress in the City of Joburg, and we are committed to continue working tirelessly to deliver on our promise of change.
However, I urge residents to work with us in terms of keeping our communities clean.
We must all work together to turn our communities, and the City as whole, into a home we can all be proud of. This will take time, but we are committed to realising this vision.