Informal settlement gets a big makeover
02 February 2016
More than 300 City of Johannesburg officials and employees on Monday February 1 descended on Bonamelo Primary School in Block 4 in Thulani Extension, Doornkop, for Region C’s first cleanup campaign of the year under the Integrated Community Outreach Programme (ICOP).
Armed with an assortment of garden tools and implements, teams from the Johannesburg Metro Police Department, Johannesburg Water, Pikitup, Johannesburg Roads Agency and Johannesburg City Parks & Zoo got down to work just after 9am.
This year environmental health inspectors have been included in the ICOP campaign to carry out spot checks at spaza shops and crèches.
Regional Director Mlamleli Belot and ICOP Deputy Director Phindile Lakaje led from the front, making sure the teams started clearing illegal dumps, cutting the grass, trimming trees and attending to residents who stopped by. JMPD officers were at hand to educate residents about the various City bylaws.
Women in distinctive bright orange work suits were seen clearing the open space near the school and bagging the rubbish for the trucks to collect later. Men with wheelbarrows, shovels and forks hurried from the school in Ward 129 to the other side in Ward 50, where Councillor Mandla Zwane was showing workers what needed to be done first.
Councillor Jabulani Thomo of Ward 129 also led crews in the cleanup of Block 11. Residents in the informal settlement were happy to see the crews. They thanked Councillor Thomo and his colleagues for the prompt response to their request for public toilets in October last year.
Seven toilets clearly marked “men-women” and “boys-girls” have been built. Under construction is a structure for communal water taps to deliver clean water to the community.
“The residents asked for the toilets during the Bua Le Sechaba campaign last year,” said Lakaje. “I’m glad we were able to deliver on their requests.”
Meanwhile, Belot was on a walkabout with a number of environmental health inspectors doing spot checks.
Thomas Beyene, who owns a spaza shop around the corner from the school, seemed nervous as the inspectors looked around. They found a few tins of expired baby formula, sweets and chocolates. After depositing the expired goods into a refuse bag, the inspectors advised Beyene to take them back to their respective suppliers.
“Please tidy up this shop. Put food items on one side and other items on the other. Make sure everything is off the floor and on to the shelves,” she said.
Beyene was one of three spaza shop owners issued with notices of compliance. They were also given free housekeeping advice and warned to keep their businesses tidy. The businesspeople were advised to visit the City’s regional offices to apply for certificates of compliance, trading permits and other documents they needed to operate legally. But the proprietors of Moosa’s Spaza Shop were not so lucky.
The small shipping container was bursting at the seams, with grocery items, a mattress, bars of bath soap and shaving sticks lying everywhere. The container was also teeming with cockroaches. The young shop assistant, Sayed, could not explain why the shop was so dirty.
Belot ordered that it be closed down. He said the shop would be reopened only after it had undergone extensive cleanup. At TM Day Care Centre, Thokozile Mabaso and her team got the thumbs up for a well-run early learning development centre.
“This is impressive,” said Belot.
Henry Bentley, Environmental Health’s Regional Operations Manager, said though expired goods were a problem, most spaza shop owners complied with regulations once they had been issued with notices.
“We do spot checks at least twice a year. We’ve enough people to do the checks and follow-ups,” Bentley said.
Nonkuthalo Ngatshane, 33, of Block 11 said snakes and illegal dumping were a big problem in her area.
“People dump dead dogs and cats near our shacks while we are asleep. The smell is unbearable. My three children and I had to leave our shack because of the snakes,” she said.
Betty Dlamini asked the officials about when residents would be issued with title deeds.
“We moved into our RDP houses in 2009 and were supposed to be issued with title deeds after five years. I want to build a security wall around my property but I can’t because we were told not to do anything until we got our title deeds,” she said.
City officials promised to get back to residents soon on the issue.
“I’m happy all the City’s entities were here today. We covered a lot of ground. But much more still needs to be done,” said Lakaje.