Feedback on the City of Johannesburg’s (CoJ’s) Bua le Sechaba (‘talk to the nation’) initiative is quite disappointing, considering MMCs are heading into their fifth month after talks and little has been done.
In a recent press release, the city said “major strides have been made” but could only produce five small adjustments in Region C. In October last year, members of the mayoral committee (MMCs) headed out to the various informal settlements in different regions and engaged with the people about service delivery issues. The majority of the attention went to illegal water and electricity connections, a lack of ablution facilities and illegal dumping across the board.
In a meeting on Tuesday, 3 February, City officials gave the following feedback on improvements made after the initiative, calling it “significant progress”. City Power is to provide electricity to the 281 housing units currently under construction in Princess close to the informal settlement. Furthermore, the city apparently made headway in halting the mushrooming of shacks on the outskirts of the Roodepoort Rugby Club with the help of the JMPD. They further boast that they’ve installed three communal taps for 180 families in the area and six water tanks, which are to be filled daily.
The Record paid witness to the conjoint effort by the Roodepoort Police and Metro Police at Princess informal settlement three weeks ago, where illegal electricity connections were removed. However, the illegal connections are back up and the people still lack ablution facilities, while the illegal dumping issue persists. Disappointingly little was done, or no effort was made to date, to assist residents of Princess and Mahlangi (Plot 8) informal settlements.
During the meeting, plans were apparently made to have the city’s various municipal entities and departments meet up to lay out how they will tackle the problems.
“When we return to the areas, we should be able to report that [the people’s] problems have been sufficiently addressed and there should be evidence that this has happened,” Councillor Sol Cowan, a member of the Bua le Sechaba chairperson’s committee, was quoted saying.
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