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Est 2009 Issue 5 - 2015
5 - 12 February 2015
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Transformation agenda Joburg Mayor Councillor Parks Tau and city officials during the recent opening of the City Parks project in Newtown.
Staff Reporter news@inner-city-gazette.co.za
M
unicipal entities must carry out the transformation agenda mandated by the electorate, says Joburg Mayor Parks Tau. He included this as he addressed the 14th Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the City’s business units at the Wanderers Cricket Stadium on Tuesday. He acknowledging the need for entities to observe generally accepted business principles in their push to meet their objectives, but reminded the entities that the Council was elected on a specific mandate, and that this must manifest itself in
the conduct of these units. The mayor was addressing accounting officers of Johannesburg City Power, Johannesburg Social Housing Company, Johannesburg Theatre, Johannesburg Property Company, Johannesburg City Parks & Zoo, Johannesburg Development Agency, Johannesburg Water, Johannesburg Roads Agency, Metropolitan Bus Service, Johannesburg Metropolitan Police Department, Johannesburg Fresh Produce Market and Pikitup. “The political mandate must come through a fundamental social transformation effort,” Mayor Tau said. He defined the work of the City from what he called a ‘compartmen-
talisation perspective’. He said the compartments he was referring to were the enterprise unit: a Johannesburg that conducts its affairs well and applies generally accepted business principles, while carrying out its political mandate. Service delivery, which requires organisational competency to carry out the work required of a municipality. The Mayor said the City was on track with its service delivery programmes, including its commitment to spend R100 billion over a 10-year period on infrastructure development. The political mandate: It is important that the City does not lose focus of how it is constituted and the prom-
ises that have been made. The primary agenda of the governing party, and by extension the City, he said, was to transform the old order; and the civic ceremonial role. He also spoke about what he called the ‘political economy of space’, an aspect that fell within the political mandate. “This is the political economy of space that influenced people’s lifestyles and their proximity to education. This is on the basis of the skewed structural architecture of the past that the City is accelerating the Corridors of Freedom programme which seeks to create mixed use residential areas at identified locations.” He added that extensive work at
Pic: Lungelo Hlatshwayo
redesigning the outlook of the areas had already started at three spatial nodes. These were Empire Path, Empire Road through Auckland Park, Westbury/Coronation); Louis Botha through Alexandra/Marlboro; and Turffontein/Rosettenville. The Mayor also emphasised the critical role to be played by the Jozi@ Work Programme, the City’s unique empowerment and job creation vehicle. “We want all the entities to create work packages for cooperatives and community-based companies registered under the programme, residents of Joburg must be co-delivery agents of municipal services,” he said.