THE City of Johannesburg’s (CoJ) executive mayor, Cllr Parks Tau, emphasised quality and effective service delivery that will ensure a tomorrow that is better than today.
The statement was made during the State of the City Address on Wednesday, May 6.
The mayor recognised that there are one million young people who are without employment, education or training in the city. He advised that to unlock their potential, the CoJ would have to recognise their value and help them find their paths to economic and social participation.
The mayor said that to transform this challenge into an opportunity, the CoJ will need to address the problem on a mass scale.
This was seconds before he announced the readiness of the Vulindlel’eJozi Innovate, which aims to break down barriers for 200 000 youngsters by 2016.
In fact, Jozi@work is one of Vulindlel’eJozi’s programmes, and it has moved into full implementation and will facilitate the placement of appropriate candidates in training and education programmes.
Cllr Tau also announced that the CoJ has a new intelligent system that will link with CCTV cameras and detect patterns of suspicious behaviour. This will allow the JMPD to see and prevent crime quickly. This type of intelligence system is used in the mega-CBD of London, England.
The CoJ also has a new digital patient system, that has been tested and approved, to cut waiting times from an average of 45 minutes to less than 10 minutes in clinics.
Moreover, 75 percent of traffic lights are now on a Remote Monitoring System, allowing for early detection and automatic reporting of faults, providing for quicker response times.
“In the last year alone, we have built 1 000 quality social housing and rental places, we have resurfaced 320 kilometres of roads, upgraded 44 kilometres of gravel roads to surfaced roads, facilitated one R1-billion value of investment and reduced mortality rates by fire and pedestrian accidents by 5 percent,” said the mayor.
