State of public facilities gives birth to initiative to keep Benoni clean
“This is an empowering initiative so in some cases, tools will be made available where members of the community can also play their part and assist.”
The long grass, thick vegetation and unkempt public parks in the vicinity of Lincoln Avenue in Benoni South were an eyesore to the managing director of Dunlop Belting Products, Don Poole.
Instead of berating the municipality for its inaction, Poole and some of his colleagues decided to take a stand and clean up Lincoln Road and its surrounds.
“We want to uplift our area. We cleaned the bridge on the corner of Lincoln Road and Birmingham Street, Prince’s Avenue and the public park further down on Prince’s,” said Poole.
This gave birth to a community upliftment initiative where Poole and several stakeholders, including officials from the DA, have joined forces to uplift the community.
Poole, along with the DA’s national assembly constituency head for Benoni Haseena Ismail and PR councillor for Wards 29 and 30, Joelene Mthethwa, led the clean-up of the Wattville Stadium on March 28.
The facility had been in a state of neglect since November 22, according to the City of Ekurhuleni.
“The limited financial resources to procure horticulture equipment have contributed to this impasse due to the ageing machinery and off-market spares to service and repair them,” said municipal spokesperson Zweli Dlamini.
Before the clean-up, the field had long grass and thick vegetation while reeds had grown up from underneath some of the stands and along the concrete fence.
The goalkeeper poles were broken and left to rot in the middle of the field and some of the fire hydrants were leaking.
“We want to be able to spend some money that’s meaningful for the community. We are cutting the grass and getting the whole facility clean for the local soccer team that practices here,” said Poole.
Poole’s company has donated a lawnmower to the football team so they can maintain the field themselves.
MP Ismail said it’s important for the community, private sector and government to work together, adding that government should establish a joint committee with all these stakeholders to evaluate proposals.
“I would say the government should call on organisations, businesses and communities to assist in working together to deliver services and to increase accountability.
“We should welcome businesses and stakeholders. We should also thank businesses and stakeholders that do assist in these joint efforts, especially at this time of economic decline. The outcome of these joint initiatives is for the benefit of all,” she said.
Decline of sports participation in Wattville
According to the chairperson of the Wattville-Actonville Sports Forum, Ferguson Radebe, the neglect of the Wattville Stadium has affected sports development in the community.
Radebe said the sporting codes mostly affected are netball, soccer, rugby and cricket and as a result, they had to rely on the Actonville Stadium, Lords Cricket Ground in Actonville and Willowmoore Park in the CBD.
“Soccer and netball teams are mostly affected by this. Most of our sporting codes face lots of challenges with the unavailability of the community stadium. We have to travel to Actonville or Willowmoore Park,” he said.
“Our youth will never enjoy sports because of the neglect of the only facility available to them.”
Ismail is hopeful the initiative will spread to other parts of Benoni so that parks can be clean and illegal dumping could be cleared.
“This is an empowering initiative so in some cases, tools will be made available where members of the community can also play their part and assist.”
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