In April last year, the residents of Alexandra embarked on a mass protest that lasted for days demanding basic service delivery, including the collection of garbage on the streets, from the City of Johannesburg.
During the protest, #AlexShutdown, residents closed all the roads leading to the township and marched to the regional offices of the City in Sandton. They accused former mayor Herman Mashaba for neglecting Alexandra and the failure of his administration to provide basic services to the residents.
The newly elected MMC for Community Development Margaret Arnolds said the answer to the problem of untidy streets of the township was to involve and educate residents about the importance of a clean environment.
Arnolds was speaking during #KleenaJoburg cleaning campaign recently held in Far East Bank where she was joined by scores of community members, City officials from different entities and local councillors.
She said her vision was to see a dirt-free city through KleenaJoburg which will continue across all regions of Joburg municipality.
“I would love to see our city become the cleanest city in the world, I would like to see eradicating dirt and our parks becoming a place where our community can take their families into without thinking twice. But all that will only be possible if we work together with our communities. We as City officials have a responsibility to educate them about the importance of having a dirt-free neighbourhood.”
She added that her department has programmes in place in which they will partner with community members to ensure that streets and public places were clean and safe to be utilised by the public.
“When I took over the office late last year, Joburg streets and parks, especially in the inner city, were very dirty. Mayor Geoff Makhubo committed that his office will work hand in hand with our department to ensure that Joburg returns to its glorious days.”
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