Mayor’s State of the City Address

Many promises were made by Mayor Mondli Gungubele when he delivered his State of the City Address in the council chambers in Germiston yesterday.

His theme for the year ahead is “Strengthening social maturity by advancing social cohesion in pursuit of a prosperous and, therefore, livable and delivering city.”

“Today, as I report back, I sincerely hope that we will fulfill the reason why we were the correct choice back in 2011, and why we remain the right people to carry the baton beyond 2016.”

Illegal miners

The mayor started off by addressing the issue of illegal miners.

“The ongoing, senseless illegal mining-related murders that continue to bedevil our area are giving us sleepless nights and seem to be escalating.

“The illegal mining activities call for urgent and aggressive attention from all of us, this cannot be allowed in a city that is a major player in the socio-economic environment of Africa,” he said.

Township economy

He continued saying that the city will throw their energy behind the revitalization of the township economy.

“We shall spare no effort as we invest in infrastructure development and we shall stop at nothing to provide quality, sustainable and equitable services.”

Ekurhuleni holds a legacy of nine towns and 17 townships, most of which currently have projects rolled out by the government.

According to Gungubele, taking into consideration the relative disadvantages face by 77% of the population who live below the poverty line in the area, Ekurhuleni has to perform wonders to improve the standard of living.

“This is despite the fact that over the first 10-year period the population of Ekurhuleni had increased by an overwhelming 28%.”

He also claimed that in pursuit of being a livable city, they have done a lot of work over the years.

Improvements which he claims have been made include:

• Access to electricity improved by 7%
• flush toilets by 3.5%
• clean water inside dwellings improved by 14.1%

“Despite a recorded 85% access to flush toilets, all our informal settlements continue to receive incremental access to clean water, sanitation, refuse removal, area lighting, roads and primary health care,” he stated.

Firefighting

Ekurhuleni committed itself to establishing firefighting reserve forces, to assist informal settlements, by building new fire stations where there was historically none.

“We also committed to improving our response times for life threatening emergencies in order to improve the general quality of life of our communities.”

Gungubele declared that all previously disadvantaged communities will have fully functional fire stations by June next year when the KwaThema Fire Station, which is under construction, is completed.

Since 2011 the city has spent R46.8-million in the construction of new fire stations in Tsakane and Zonkezizwe, and disaster management satellite offices in Kempton Park and Tsakane.

• Emergency calls responded to within 15 minutes increased from 15.78% to 58.49%
• Emergency medical calls responded to within an hour increased from 4.44% to 100%

Drugs

“With the rate of drug abuse sky rocketing among our communities, the metro police have been vigilant, their biggest arrest being the nabbing of a man in Springs who was found in possession of the drug Cat worth R1.5-million earlier this year.”

The mayor adds that Ekurhuleni will soon be establishing a more specialized Drugs Task Team to handle the increasing drug problem.

Settlements

“It is also exciting to note that a minimum of 12 informal settlements in our region have been prioritized as part of the project pipeline for the suite of projects to be implemented by both the Provincial and National Departments of Human Settlements.

These 12 settlements including KwaThema and Tsakane.

In the Mayor’s speech he mentioned that residents of Kwatsaduza who are on the waiting list will finally be allocated houses in the ongoing Tsakane Ext 22 project which commenced last year.

Since 2011 Ekurhuleni has constructed 266.5km of road in different areas, among which are Tsakane, KwaThema and Nigel.

Health

To date eight primary health care clinics have extended their operating times to 24-hours, one operates 12-hours seven days a week and in addition 16 clinics provide extended service hours on Saturdays.

“Furthermore we are in the process of completing the Duduza reconciliation park as well as the historical Indaba Tree in KwaThema, where the elderly used to meet to discuss community issues, is also undergoing a facelift.”

Gungubele says that the city’s Wi-Fi expansion plans have been defined and are being rolled out over a period of three years.

“Loosely translated, all our people will enjoy the availability of free Wi-Fi by 2017.”

Ending off his speech, the Mayor urges the public to assist fighting corruption by reporting illicit activities to the internal audit team via the Ekurhuleni Fraud Hotline at 0800 123 321.

“They are guaranteed anonymity.”