Councillor Mpho Moerane has successfully led the second leg of this year’s Inner City #KleenaJoburg Reloaded campaign on June 19, which focused on sprucing up several litter hot spots in the Johannesburg inner-city.
It is the second time this year in which the MMC for Environment and Infrastructure Services (EISD), Moerane, has led a massive clean-up of the Johannesburg CBD, focusing on waste collection, removing illegal dumping sites and repairing vandalised infrastructure.
The focus was on the intersection of Marshall and Goud streets. The MMC was joined by a multidisciplinary team comprising Joburg Water, Pikitup and City Power.
The clean-up focused on litter hot spots in the following streets: Durban, Mooi, Berea, Meikle, End, Albert, Nugget and Marshall.
The multipronged team dealt with grime on End Street, where they also cleaned illegally dumped waste on pavements, including rubble, plastic, glass, wood and cardboards.
Joburg Water officials repaired water metres with stolen valves and those that had been vandalised. It was also found that some water metres had been tampered with, resulting in leakages on End and Albert streets. In the same streets, valve covers were missing.
Two illegal structures erected with cardboard and plastic on Mooi Street were demolished. Inside these structures, occupied by vagrants, were cans, aluminium and piles of plastic. Moerane conceded that the City was grappling with the challenge of homelessness.
“There are programmes in place to address such people, and the Department of Social Development has been active in this case. Unfortunately, they keep returning to the streets. Therefore, we cannot tolerate such lawlessness on our streets,” he said.
The MMC also mentioned the issue of illegal foreign nationals.
“We have a problem of illegal foreign nationals on our streets as well. We have engaged the department of Home Affairs to assist us, but unfortunately, the process is too slow.”
He added that Joburg’s infrastructure is overburdened.
“It’s our responsibility to fix and make sure our infrastructure functions perfectly for our residents. But we want to urge residents to look after our infrastructure and report any acts of vandalism they come across.”
The clean-up also spread to the City’s famous traditional market, Kwa Mai-Mai, where a huge amount of waste was removed from the pavements outside. The MMC closed off the day’s proceedings on Marshall and Goud streets, where he attended to a faulty street light along with City Power technicians.
The #KleenaJoburg Reloaded campaign is in support of Mayor Geoffrey Makhubo’s 120 Days of Accelerated Service Delivery initiative. EISD has decided that its ongoing clean-up campaign will be hosted every second Saturday of the month to accelerate service delivery in the inner-city.
Background
The resumption of the #KleenaJoburg Reloaded campaign assumed an integrated service delivery approach, where the City’s entities join forces to render a variety of services.
Introduced in late 2019, the campaign’s official launch was interrupted by the pandemic. Following the lifting of some of the lockdown restrictions, the campaign was re-launched as #KleenaJoburg Reloaded.
