‘Stop fingerpointing on Alex’s complex challenges’
ALEXANDRA – Councillor calls for sober minds in tackling Alex's complex challenges.
The Joburg City Council administration was advised to endear itself to residents by improving service delivery and not be preoccupied with criticising its predecessor.
This was said by ANC councillor for Ward 119 Adolph Marema in the aftermath of the demolition of houses in Silverton (near Setswetla) next to Ext 7 on 1 June. The incident has left the administration scrambling for answers through an inquiry ordered by Mayor Herman Mashaba. This after he apologised and committed to rebuild about a hundred of the victim’s homes.
The demolition also coincided with three ongoing investigations by the City, provincial and national government and jointly by the SA Human Rights Commission and the Public Protector on housing-related corruption, human rights abuse and maladministration in service delivery. Mashaba said the gesture to rebuild the ‘illegal’ brick-and-mortar homes would be pending a solution to the housing crisis in the city which he attributed to the previous administration.
The mayor’s commitment was criticised by the #Shutdownalex movement which the administration claimed is the ANC’s electioneering machinery. The movement accused the administration of attending to the victims of the demolition they said were not in the township’s housing waiting list. Its leaders promised to organise a protest against the administration for ignoring the housing and service delivery demands they presented during the pre-election protest which shut down the township.
Marema urged the administration to act statesmanlike and without favouritism. “They should learn to resolve problems and challenges they inherited without pointing fingers while basking in the glory of initiatives they completed which were started by their predecessor.”
He discounted the administration’s claims of rampant corruption by its predecessor as unfounded saying the Auditor General’s report only identified maladministration in the allocation of the RDP houses by individuals who are the subject of the investigations. “Logically, the incumbent authority should continue and conclude work they inherit and act on transgressions regardless of which era than, grandstand and accuse everyone else.”
He called for restraint and sober minds in addressing Alex’s housing challenges. “They are complex and unsolvable through emotional outbursts of criticism and will polarise the three spheres of local government from reaching sustainable solutions through collective means.”
He defended the previous administration saying it couldn’t complete the process of land acquisition for the huge housing backlog due to delay in legal processes, negotiations, acquisition of budgets, zoning and rezoning of acquired land that could follow and, legal issues still preventing the handing over of title deeds to claimants of inner Alex.
Marema urged the council which is responsible for service delivery to collaborate with the provincial government responsible for housing delivery in implementing the ‘statement of intent’. “The documents are a guide to solving the housing crisis through the purchase of surrounding land, compensation and issuing of title deeds to inner Alex claimants and optional housing stock like high rise accommodation.”
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