Mashaba calls on Africa to join A Re Sebetseng

City of Johannesburg Mayor Herman Mashaba has encouraged African leaders attending the C40 Financing Sustainable African Cities Forum at Hyatt Regency hotel in Rosebank, to support and adopt the A Re Sebetseng programme.

Mashaba welcomed and addressed delegates attending the forum on 12 June. “I would like to take this opportunity to invite leaders of the C40 Forum to support this initiative, with the hope of turning it into a continental programme. Just imagine all African cities being as clean as Kigali, the city that birthed this simple but revolutionary concept,” he said.

The forum which took place for the first time in the city and the country, was aimed at providing a high-profile platform for city mayors and senior officials from across Africa to connect with investors, international stakeholders and non-profit organisations, to facilitate new investment and empower African cities to take the lead in changing the course of the fight against climate change.

Some of the guests who attended the forum included the Mayor of Accra Mohammed Adjei Sowah, mayor of Tshwane Steven Mokgalapa, head of legislation and policy environment for Municipal Infrastructure Financing at National Treasury Judy Nkosi, managing director and global head of corporate sustainability at Citi Valerie Smith and representatives from cities across the continent.

Mashaba also boasted about the Rea Vaya bus rapid transit system which commenced operation in 2009 and said they were the cleanest buses in Africa at the time, and complied with the Euro 4 emissions standards. “Our bus rapid transit system – the first in Africa – achieves a ridership of up to 53 000 passengers per day and, perhaps even more impressively, has achieved a GreenHouse Gas emissions reduction of approximately 46 000 tons in Carbon Dioxide.”

He said that as part of Johannesburg’s efforts to switch to sustainable public transport, the City has pioneered the use of compressed natural gas through the acquisition of 150 buses which are used by Metrobus.

Mashaba added that they hope to reduce the city’s use of internal combustion vehicles by 50 per cent by the year 2040 with the introduction of an electric vehicle fleet in the near future. “We will be embarking on a feasibility study in due course. A new energy mix is fast emerging for Johannesburg. The traditional electricity business of selling centrally-generated power is being disrupted by exciting new technologies, driven by the falling cost of these new options.”

He concluded with the good news that the new options were cleaner and present a tremendous opportunity to positively transform the City’s energy system.

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