Polokwane Municipality appoints 2 000 new workers
All 45 wards of the municipality will have 40 beneficiaries each who are going to work and be able to provide for their families.
POLOKWANE – The seats of the Peter Mokaba Sports Complex were painted in yellow last Tuesday morning when 2 000 newly appointed workers were welcomed at the launch of the local authority’s Cleaning and Greening Project.
The project is a partnership between the Polokwane Municipality and the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE), and has been prioritised as part of 14 municipalities across the country to implement this Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP).
The total budget for the programme is around R85m, amounting to R70m for wages from DFFE while R15m on PPEs and tools of trade will be contributed by the municipality.
The beneficiaries will not incur travelling costs since they will be placed within their living areas and be employed on a one-year contract.
All 45 wards of the municipality will have 40 beneficiaries each who are going to work and be able to provide for their families.
Before marshalling the new workers through the streets in the CBD, Mayor John Mpe said the clean-up campaign must be accompanied by environmental education awareness to help change the mindset of communities about keeping the city and their own spaces clean at all times.
“The launch of this programme is not by accident or coincidence. It is in recognition of the good work that the municipality is doing to protect the environment. We are proud to mention that Polokwane was the winner of the Greenest Municipality Competition at district and provincial level as announced in September this year and this achievement is all the more remarkable considering the many environmental challenges we have faced, specifically with regard to the drought,” Mpe said.
“As we launch this initiative, we are sure that we will rid ourselves of illegal dumping hotspots in communities across the municipality and be able to combat environmental degradation,” Mpe said and explained that illegal dumping poses a health hazard to communities and undermines community morale and good governance. “From an environmental perspective, illegal dumping poses serious risks to livestock, wetlands, rivers and our beautiful and naturally progressive City of Stars,” the mayor said.
“I believe that we all have a basic understanding of some of the key environmental challenges we are facing. Global climate is changing and likely to continue changing for many years to come as climate change brings about extreme weather, droughts and floods, melting of the permanent ice of the north and south poles as well as rising ocean levels.
“This is a result of air pollution caused by human activities. I am a bit worried that we are also affected since we are in the dry season and the 21 550 trees we have planted so far are a bit stressed by the heat,” Mpe said. “Let us continue planting trees in parks and open spaces to meet the presidential call for planting 10 million trees. We now have no excuse as we have more people available for this job,” he concluded.
