City prioritise areas for IDP
21 April 2016
Four wards in the City of Johannesburg’s Region F have the highest number of contact crimes than any other region in the metropolis.
Wards 64, 66, 67 and 123 are also considered the most-deprived areas of the Johannesburg inner city, with high levels of unemployment, poverty and inequality.
This emerged during an Integrated Development Planning (IDP) meeting at the Yeoville Recreation Centre on Tuesday night. Regional Director Irene Mafune said the City was aware of the problems facing communities in these inner city areas.
“We’re working hard as the City to deal with these socioeconomic challenges. We recently met commanders of police stations in the inner city to discuss ways of improving policing to reduce these high levels of crime,” Mafune said.
Mafune added that the City was seeing encouraging signs that property-related crimes were on the decline.
“The police, in partnership with the City and residents, are working hard to prevent the hijacking of buildings and the return of those already hijacked to their rightful owners. The illegal dumping of rubbish by residents and traders on the pavements was another challenge facing the region," she said.
“We recently launched a cleanup campaign targeting illegal dumping hot spots. Working with Pikitup and residents, we cleared many of these dump sites. We were joined by directors of other regions as we all consider the inner city as vital to improving residents’ living conditions.”
Residents at the meeting said although they appreciated the capital projects taking place in the inner city, they were concerned about the socioeconomic situation in the area.
“Unemployment is very high in our areas. Many residents have no food and cannot find jobs. People are sick and those on treatment are not getting better because they take the medication on empty stomachs,” said Ayanda Zenzile of Ward 66.
Siphiwe Shabangu complained about the clinic and parks in Ward 67.
“The clinic needs to be upgraded as it is small and does not seem to cope with the large numbers of residents visiting it. Our recreation centre and the park in the ward are neglected and are dilapidated,” he said.
Tumelo Mosime said renovated parks soon become dilapidated due to the lack of security.
“Vagrants and drug dealers invade these parks and turn them into drug dens. The City should have security in these parks to protect them from becoming a home for vagrants and a drug dealers’ haven.”
Member of the Mayoral Committee for Development Planning Cllr Rosslyn Greeff said partnerships with residents, NGOs and the City were important in dealing with social problems.
“While it is true that many parks in the inner city don’t have adequate security and are not properly maintained, we’re working with City Parks and inner city NGOs to improve security and maintain them. Jozi@Work is one of the projects aimed at uplifting communities by providing work opportunities to small businesses and encouraging residents to form co-operatives to create jobs and access to economic opportunities,” Greeff said.
The City’s Health and Social Development Department was also helping to rehabilitate drug addicts and house vagrants in shelters, Greeff said.
“However, many of the drug users leave the rehabilitation centres and go back to the streets. The same thing happens with homeless people, who abandon the shelters and return to live in parks as vagrants. We’re working on strategies to strengthen community engagement in dealing with such issues.”
She added that a drug and alcohol abuse clinic was being set up.
“As this meeting is part of an ongoing engagement with communities, we will take all these issues raised today to the mayoral committee. We will then discuss these in full and make recommendations, which will be then discussed with the communities for a further plan of action.”