On Wednesday, 12 January, Executive Mayor, Cllr Mpho Phalatse and Members of the Mayoral Committee of the City of Johannesburg ushered in a new era for service delivery for the immediate, medium and long-term.
It began on the 13th of December 2021 with the announcement of a mayoral committee comprised of men and women dedicated to transforming Johannesburg into a City of Opportunity.
This team has since invested time and energy into the consideration of priorities for the rest of the financial year ending June. We call this, “A Golden Start”.
It marks the beginning of real, meaningful change and a restoration of hope and dignity in the City.
For too long, our residents have suffered the indignities of poor roads, power outages, water outages and an ever-degrading quality of life. Some have even lost jobs including many who have been without work for a long, long time.
Our Councillors are daily inundated with calls from residents desperate for assistance with one service or another.
This is so because the City has not delivered the way it ought to.
Complaints have gone unanswered and service delivery has virtually ground to a halt. But all is about to change.
By the end of the financial year, our residents will at last get a City administration that properly responds to calls, queries and disputes. We pledge improved communications and public relations. Our residents will no longer dread having to reach out to the municipality to report some or other failure.
The Multi Party Government (MPG) emerges at a time when residents are desperate for change.
In the ‘Golden Start’ we will address key areas that are broken and need fixing while aiming to achieve other important goals in order to get the basics of service delivery right. These fundamentals will be underpinned by mayoral priorities, including:
- A city that gets the basics rights
- A safe and secure city
- A caring city
- A business-friendly city
- An inclusive city
- A well-run city
- A smart city
In March, the City will host an Energy Indaba.
My administration views the impact of power failures in a serious light, not only for households but for businesses that are crucial to job-creation.
The Energy Indaba will bring together a diverse group of stakeholders including suppliers, innovators, entrepreneurs, and academics from the entire energy supply spectrum. We will free our City from the curse of the Eskom monopoly.
When there is guaranteed certainty of energy supply, everybody wins. Frequent power failures are not only detrimental to households. Businesses risk collapse. Joblessness rises. Moreover, new investment is curbed but if we want economic growth that leads to jobs, then we must guarantee this crucial service.
Work is already under way in the electricity front.
A new programme has been introduced to reduce and ultimately eliminate cable theft, which is a significant cause of power outages.
The streets in our various CBDs will be much cleaner through the inclusion of mechanization in street sweeping. There will also be a reintroduction of the community-assisted cleanup campaign known as A Re Sebetseng as well as a clamp down on illegal dumping.
We must all play a part in restoring the quality of the environment in which we live.
Before the end of this financial year, we will produce a plan to implement an awareness programme for schools and targeted communities.
Service delivery will become our focus. The City’s employees will recommit themselves towards a customer centric service delivery value chain.
The management team in the Department of Community Development has committed to intensifying support to communities through a “7 – 11am boots on the ground” programme. In terms of this programme, the department will deploy officials from 7 to 11am every day to public libraries and parks near you.
The improvement in service delivery will be visible and evident. Key road infrastructure maintenance will mean that residents’ daily commute will be free-flowing and quicker, as the maintenance of Traffic Lights repairs becomes more effective and efficient using UPS re-cabling, which is relatively cost-effective.
The asphalt plant, on which we depend to fill potholes and repair road surfaces, is currently dysfunctional.
By the end of June, we pledge to improve performance significantly to ensure that the plant delivers better than it is currently. Beyond June, the plant will operate at optimum level.
This is our pledge.
Bus lanes taken over by minibus taxis and private cars will be reinstated for use by public transport.
The buses themselves will be more reliable, courtesy of Bus Refurbishment Programme which will increase the economic life of the Metrobus fleet. This is possible with a R20 million cash injection by the end of June.
Health and Social Development in the City will receive much-deserved focus.
In Davidsonville, the Community Based Substance Abuse Program there will be fully operational in the next few months. There will also be 39 clinics providing Covid-19 Vaccination across the City.
Significant renovations will take place across 11 clinics in the City, expanding services and delivering a much better customer experience.
The way building plans are approved will return to the pre-December 2019 era.
Some time ago, the City of Johannesburg was awarded a prestigious prize by the National Productivity Institute. The award was given in recognition of a process that the City had put in place to approve building plans within 24 hours.
Yes, the previous multi-party government managed to approve building plans that complied with all regulations within 24 hours! We can do that again but it will take time.
In the interim, our commitment to residents and businesses is that building plans will be approved within 5 days instead of the current 30 days. Beyond June 2022, we will aim to reduce this period even further. It is the certainty of our town planning and other processes that will bring the necessary development that will enhance the quality of our residents’ lives and lead to significant job-creation.
Within the next two months, residents will see more JMPD officers on the City’s streets.
An additional 500 personnel will be deployed in our business nodes. In these areas, you will be certain to see an officer every 5 minutes.
We are determined to ensure that we all feel safe from crime and physical danger of any kind. We will initiate the revision of the City’s Safety Strategy.
We will launch an upgraded and an all-encompassing law enforcement programme known as Operation Buya Mthetho within the next 2 weeks.
As I have already alluded to, job-creation will be one of the top targets on which the multi-party government will seek to be judged.
The various City-owned agencies responsible for economic development will be reviewed for performance. Where changes are required in their functions and responsibilities, these will be effected.
The creation of jobs is not the sole purview of government. In fact, government is the enabler. The private sector, big, small and even the individual entrepreneurs are the creators. So what will we do about it?
- In Mid-May we will host a Business Collaboration event. The participants will be drawn from all over, be it the tourism sector, financial and other services, manufacturing, and even unlikely sectors such as agriculture.
- The boards of the City’s entities will be replaced with new ones
- Issue Hawker Trading Permit issuing will have been overhauled
- The Informal Trade Policy will be accelerated in line with By-Law Enforcement. Ensure execution backed by effective Communication
The multi-party government once again pledges to rebuild the Inner City and turn Johannesburg into a Construction site.
The Inner-City Rejuvenation Programme will be given new life. Fortunately, there is no lack of goodwill among property owners and other stakeholders in downtown Johannesburg, and other areas.
There are a number of property owners who have voluntarily bound themselves in associations (City Improvement Districts – CIDs) to upgrade the immediate surrounds to their properties. There is just one partner that has not played its part – the City.
We will immediately correct this. An example is the CID adjacent to St Mary’s Cathedral. It makes sense to not only explore the creation of a Heritage Precinct but to also link up with adjacent CIDs. We will sign a service level agreement in this regard by the end of February.
In our efforts to breathe life into the Inner City, we will be renaming the Heritage Precinct in honour of the late global icon and Nobel Laureate, Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Mpilo Tutu.
Despite an apparent need, the housing needs of our people have not received the required attention.
Through improved service and partnerships, we will address gaps related to student accommodation, homes for the aged and hostel upgrades while accelerating the issuing of title deeds.
We make no apology for repetitively using the word “partnership”.
Even when a broken administration is fixed and the basics are done right, there will still not be enough money and resources to do the job. But I am confident that we will get it done. My confidence lies in the existence of a plethora of people and organisations that have raised their hands and expressed a desire to work with the Multi-party Government.
So, partnerships will take place in many forms, from local community-based initiatives to large-scale infrastructure development, independent power production and the emergence of a truly smart city.
Within two months, we will have opened the Partnership Portal, where people and organisations can register themselves, lodge ideas and track opportunities. On this portal, partnerships can be formed by communities who want to solve issues in their neighbourhoods, or by businesses or civil society organisations who have an interest in working together in fixing our City.
But overall, the City must ensure financial sustainability.
Programmes such as Operation Buya Mthetho, Operation Clean Audit and others will be tracked and targets will be set to ensure a successful migration to a fully funded, clean and effective government.
Corruption will be exposed and people will be prosecuted.
The City is indeed an institution. Operations take a lot of coordination and back-room administration to enable quality frontline service delivery. These are essential. Accordingly, within the next 5 months there will be:
- Institutional review and organisational development and filling critical vacancies.
- Review of critical GCSS policies.
- Turnaround plan- Metrobus, JPC, MTC, JDA.
This is the Golden Start to our 5-year term. When the Integrated Development Plan and the Budget is tabled, the work done to begin fixing our broken City and restore it to its shine will be fully revealed.
There is no lack of determination. Through collective efforts and the participation of all, it will be done and we will succeed.