There are more than 1 000 parks, open spaces and river areas in Johannesburg, and so the mayor’s promise to have park rangers in each one is quite a stretch.
This especially as there are currently only 15 park rangers employed by the City of Johannesburg, and no official plans are even in place yet to implement this promise.
So said Ward 104 councillor Mike Wood.
Johannesburg Mayor Geoff Makhubo made the promise during his State of the City address on 4 May, citing elevated crime levels in public parks recently, but after weeks of requesting comment from the City, spokesperson for Johannesburg City Parks and Zoo, Jenny Moodley could only divulge minor details about the issue on 28 May.
“The new operational budget was just announced this week,” she told Randburg Sun.
“We hope to get clarity next week regarding budget allocations for the acquiring of additional environmental monitors who will be trained as field officers and have peace officer status. There will still be the dependency on JMPD to enforce the by-laws, but this team will definitely be better equipped.”
She said more information would be revealed to the media in due course, and could not say how many parks there are in the city, or how much money these rangers (or environmental monitors) will cost taxpayers in equipment and salaries.
In response, Wood said he was disappointed more information was not yet available to the public.
