Wednesday, 18 October 2017, the Executive Mayor, Cllr Herman Mashaba and MMC for Public Safety, Cllr Micheal Sun, welcomed 1500 new JMPD trainee officers to the streets of Johannesburg. This injection of JMPD personnel will go a long way towards improving the safety of the city of Johannesburg for its residents and visiting tourists who come from the length and breadth of the country and abroad.
This exciting announcement ties in with Joburg Tourism’s partnership with provincial and national tourism structures to implement a Tourism Safety programme that will involve key tourism sites and attractions in the city.
The Tourism Monitors Programme involves training, mentorship and deployment of unemployed youth in tourism attractions and sites. The objectives of the Programme are to enhance tourism safety awareness at key tourism attractions/ sites and to skill and provide practical work experience to the unemployed youth, enabling them to be employable.
60 youth in the city from the age of 18 to 35 years (with the majority being women) have been recruited onto the monitors programme.
We are even more excited to announce that these tourism ambassadors will receive additional training from Public Safety in the areas of by-law enforcement, first aid and safety; equipping them with the right set of skills to better serve our tourists and city residents.
It goes without saying that a safer Johannesburg is attractive to not only tourists but is a major boost for our investment drive. As Johannesburg becomes safer, we will attract a greater share of the world’s investment, resulting in more jobs and economic opportunities for our citizens and entrepreneurs.
We plan to continually edge other global cities and improve on our global standing as a safe and friendly destination for business and leisure tourists. We can only achieve the ambitious economic growth targets we have set ourselves when each of the city’s key elements are in sync.