Region spends R90-million on projects prioritised in IDP

10 April 2017

 

The City of Johannesburg has spent nearly R90-million to complete and upgrade 10 projects in Region B that were high on the list of demands made by residents during an Integrated Development Plan (IDP) meeting in the 2015-2016 financial year.

 

Region B is in the centre of the City of Johannesburg, sharing its borders with Roodepoort to the west, Bryanston and Sandton to the east, the inner city to the southeast and parts of Soweto to the south.

According to acting Regional Director Monwabisi Siwedi, these projects were completed during the 2016-2017 financial year, enhancing the quality of life of residents in Region B.

Speaking at an IDP public participation meeting at the Westbury Recreation Centre on Saturday April 8, Siwedi said the completed projects were:

 The Hursthill power station, built by City Power at a cost of R40-million;

 Westbury Clinic, built by the Health and Social Development Department at a cost of R20.4-million;

 Westdene Dam Park, built by Johannesburg City Parks & Zoo (JCPZ) at a cost of R11.9 million;

 The Johannesburg Zoo’s animal hospital, built by JCPZ at cost of R3-million;

 Davey Road Park in the Bosmont-Newclare area, built by JCPZ at a cost of R2-million;

 Kingston Frost Park in Brixton, built by JPCZ at cost of R3-million;

 Upgrading of a school, community hall and library in Riverlea; and

 Upgrading of the Riverlea Recreation Centre at a cost of R1-million.

Siwedi said the City had allocated a further R100-million in the 2016-2017 financial year to complete projects in Pennyville, Newclare, Westbury, Coronationville, Bryantson and Bosmont.

The meeting was one of more than 20 currently being rolled out throughout the City’s seven regions to give residents the opportunity to make an input to the IDP document ahead of the delivery of the 2017-2018 budget by Member of the Mayoral Committee for Finance Cllr Rabelani Dagada in May.

The IDP is a multi-year plan that contains the City’s strategies and implementation plans required to achieve its vision. The public participation process will culminate in a stakeholder summit on Tuesday April 25.

Member of the Mayoral Committee for Development Planning Cllr Funzela Ngobeni, who was accompanied by the Chairperson of Section 79 Committee of Petitions Cllr Steven Kotze and six ward councillors, said in as much as the City was faced with numerous challenges, the new administration was committed to tackling them to improve residents’ quality of life.

Cllr Ngobeni said the challenges included poverty, inequality and poor service delivery, which was in most instances due to the lack of infrastructure maintenance. He said corruption diverted money away from service delivery.

Vaughan Reyneke of Westbury wanted to know if the budget allocated to these projects was well spent and raised concern about the safety of students using Wi-Fi facilities.

Julia Jacobs of the Greater Sophiatown Economic Development Forum expressed her unhappiness with the shelving of the Jozi@Work programme.

A member of the local action group asked City officials to close mining properties in the area as they added no value to the community.

Mlungisi Ntsele of Ward 69 wanted to know what had happened to the proposed bridge in Slovo and robots along the University of Johannesburg.

Dudu Mbatha of Riverlea Extension 3 said it was not clear how the R1-million was spent on the development in Pennyville because the work done was not worth that amount.