Free State municipality ‘enriched’ by Jozi visit

24 March 2016

 

Members of a high-profile delegation from the Maluti-a-Phofung Local Municipality in the Free State that visited the City of Johannesburg on Wednesday March 23 said they were greatly enriched by the experience and would take back with them “very valuable insight and lessons” gained from it.

 

The delegation was hosted by Johannesburg Executive Mayor Councillor Parks Tau, Member of the Mayoral Committee (MMC) for Environment and Infrastructure Services Councillor Matshidiso Mfikoe – who chaired the meeting – MMC for Finance Councillor Godfrey Makhubo, MMC for Transport Counciilor Christine Walters, City Manager Trevor Fowler and several other top officials at the Metro Centre in Braamfontein.

The Maluti-a-Phofung Local Municipality delegation was led by MMCs Lebesa Moeketsi, Teboho Mkwanazi and Betsi Mofokeng.

The purpose of the Knowledge Exchange Engagement was, according to Mayor Tau, to exchange strategic ideas on how to deal with the challenges of governing at the local level.

“This type of engagement gives us the opportunity as local government leaders to learn from one another’s experiences in our duties to deliver services to our communities and to improve their living conditions,” Mayor Tau said.

In his presentation to the meeting, Luncedo Njezula of Pikitup, the City of Johannesburg's waste management entity, outlined the unit's operations and challenges.

“A major challenge facing the City of Johannesburg is educating residents about separating waste from source, which is the household. This will help reduce waste that goes to landfill sites and provide opportunities for entrepreneurs to start and run recycling businesses,” Njekuza said.

He said only 7% of waste was currently being recycled in Johannesburg.

“We need to change this so that only 7% of the waste ends up in landfill sites. This we can only achieve by raising awareness among communities to change their behaviour about waste disposal,” Njekuza said.

MMC Walters’ presentation focused on the Rea Vaya Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system. She said this was one of the most difficult and stressful programmes to be implemented by the City.

“We had to be brave and dogged in our resolve to implement the programme. The taxi industry, for example, was violently opposed to it. People died as a result of the violence related to opposition to the programme,” she said.

The MMC said the City’s leadership was, however, determined to go ahead with the plan to change the transport landscape in Johannesburg. Maluti-a-Phofung’s Mkwanazi thanked the City for hosting his delegation, saying the engagement was enriching and valuable.

“As the main thoroughfare of road transport, our municipality plans to leverage this to develop a transport corridor along Harrismith. This should contribute to economic development and help to create jobs and improve infrastructure in our municipality,” he said.

He added that Maluti-a-Phofung would in the near future invite the City of Johannesburg “to come and enjoy the scenic beauty of our mountainous area”.
This is the second municipality to be hosted by the City in a few weeks. On March 3 a delegation from the City of Ekurhuleni visited the City’s Region F on a fact-finding mission and to share ideas on a range of programmes the two cities use to drive service delivery in their communities.