Mayor Mashaba calls on parties to back change

31 March 2017

 

Johannesburg Executive Mayor Cllr Herman Mashaba has called on all political parties to support his “policies of change” to improve the lives of the poor and suffering in the city.

 

Tabling the 2017-2018 Service Delivery Budget and Implementation Plan (SDBIP) during a council meeting on Thursday March 30, Mayor Mashaba said as a collective the City of Johannesburg would, through identified five pillars, be able to grow the economy by 5%, create jobs and decisively tackle the housing backlog.

Cllr Mashaba said the City would enhance the quality of life of the residents by focusing on their needs. He said advancing the pro-poor development plan would go a long way in improving the lives of the poor, whom he said had been sidelined for far too long.

The Mayor called on all political parties to help his administration run an honest and committed government and deliver services to communities in a professional and efficient manner.

“Let us embrace our communities and improve service delivery and performance through all our departments and entities by becoming consumer-centric and resolving the City’s longstanding billing crisis and fast-tracking service delivery, especially to poor communities.

“We have to promote economic development so as to achieve a minimum of 5% growth by 2021. We have to revitalise the inner city to enable us to combat and eliminate crime from our communities and make them safe.

“There has in the past been a disappointing lack of attention to financial management practices, which has also been accompanied by a failure to adequately investigate cases of unauthorised, irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure.

“This left the City unable to assess whether or not the identified expenditure could effectively be recovered. This means we must take serious steps in driving capital expenditure investment in infrastructure, particularly through the upcoming budget.

“We also want to make Johannesburg a smart city capable of supporting innovations and meeting the demands of our new digital age. The City is looking forward to presenting the new budget in May,” the Mayor said.