On, 22 May 2018, I conducted a successful site visit to Slovo Park and Elias Motsoaledi Informal Settlements to review progress made with electrification projects in both communities.
I was privileged to meet Mrs Ace Phamaniso and Mrs Constance Mphesheni from Slovo Park and Mrs Jabili Khany from Elias Motsoaledi. The homes of Mrs Phamaniso and Mphesheni are already switched on, and Mrs Khany’s home will soon be connected to the electricity grid.
3734 informal households in Slovo Park will be electrified by the first week of June 2018, and a total of 3000 RDP homes in Elias Motsoaledi will be connected to electricity towards the end of June 2018.
I was joined by the MMC for Environment and Infrastructure, the Speaker of Council, MD for City Power, representatives from the Region, cllrs and the Slovo Park Community Development Forum.
In 2015, the residents of Slovo Park took the City to court for its failure to provide services to them after, what was then, 21 years of democracy.
The judgement stated: “For all of this time they have lived in deplorable conditions, they have no access to electricity, shack fires break out at a rate of 1 every 2 months and are often fatal and ambulances refuse to collect the sick from Slovo Park because the roads are not formally demarcated, do not appear on a map, are not signposted and as a result individual residents cannot be located.”
The judgement goes on to refer to how this community had been promised by all three spheres of government to provide services, but these promises never materialised.
These were the forgotten people of our City.
However, I made a promise to the people of Slovo Park that our government will bring electricity to their homes. This is part of our pro-poor agenda to uplift those communities that cannot help themselves. In helping communities such as Slovo Park and Elias Motsoaledi, we also steer its people away from illegal electricity connections.
On the 19th of February this year, the residents of Slovo Park, for the first time, awoke to the sounds of the City installing electricity and roads in their community.
Both of these projects also created job opportunities:
- 62 individuals were employed for the project in Slovo Park, which consisted of:
- 10 labourers employed directly by the City Power contractors,
- 1 community liaison officer employed by the City Power contractor,
- 3 SMMEs sourced from the community to employ labourers,
- 1 security SMME,
- 1 administrator, and
- 1 disabled employee.
- 42 individuals were employed for the project in Elias Motsoaledi, which consisted of:
- 41 labourers and 1 community liaison officer employed through the City Power contractor, and
- 1 Security SMME.
This matter is not only about service delivery. It is about bringing dignity to our people.