This was announced by Deputy Minister of Environmental Affairs, Barbara Thomson at the fourth edition of the Green Municipality Competition in Tzaneen, Limpopo, earlier this week.
And the city’s Member of the Mayoral Committee for Environment and Infrastructure Services, Matshidiso Mfikoe has applauded the city’s achievement. Mfikoe said this would strengthen the municipality’s resolve and determination to build a city that offered a healthy, clean and safe environment in line with its Growth and Development Strategy 2040 (GDS 2040).
The prize was due to the implementation of waste, climate change and green economy-related job creation projects.
Thomson said, “Funding the competition is of great strategic importance, as it helps to galvanise municipalities to initiate projects that address their integrated development plans and forge links with our Extended Public Works Programme (EPWP) mandate of creating temporary employment and offering skills development opportunities.”
Meanwhile, City of Joburg’s executive director of Environment and Infrastructure Services, Tiaan Ehlers, said the prize money would be used to bolster the schools’ going green project during the 2015/16 financial year.
The City entered several projects which included the Johannesburg Zoo’s Biogas Digester, which powers the zoo’s kiosk kitchen, its wetland water recycling system, which purifies storm water and diverts it into Zoo Lake, the zoo’s small wetland system, situated in the tiger enclosure and its vast solar photovoltaic system. Other sites and projects assessed by the GMC panel were:
- City Power’s household smart metering system and the household solar geyser rollout in Alexandra
- Pikitup’s Robinson landfill-to-gas project and the Zondi Buy-back Centre
- Johannesburg Water’s Northern Water Works
- City Parks’ innovative design and landscaping at the Diepsloot and Westpark cemeteries
- City Parks’ rollout of over 47 school-based food gardens
- City Parks’ free-to-use outdoor gyms at the Petrus Molefe Eco-Park and nine other parks
- The Dobsonville bus rapid transit system depot, as well as the Metro Park and BKB participating school, Sgodiphola Secondary in Cosmo City.
Johannesburg City Parks and the Zoo managing director, Bulumko Nelana said, as the custodians of horticultural and zoological services in the City, they were committed to enhancing Joburg’s ecological mandate while simultaneously offering residents the best outdoor experience in the city.
