Johannesburg - The new Mayor of Joburg, Thapelo Amad, has promised to attend to the financial crisis in the City of Joburg and ensure that service providers are paid and service delivery continues.
The municipality had run into financial difficulties due to unpaid contracts and service providers for months. But Amad announced that the city would seek a loan from the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) to ensure that the municipality is able to deliver uninterrupted services.
The situation with the municipal finances was so bad that employees of the city got scared all the time at the end of the month, fearing that their salaries would not come in.
The ANC and other parties refused to help the DA-led administration get the much-needed funds because the mayor at the time, Mpho Phalatse, had refused to admit that the municipality was in a crisis.
“We are in a city that is under massive financial strain, and therefore the stabilisation of the city’s finances as well as financial sustainability is to be prioritised in this regard, and we will place emphasis on the proper functioning of our financial systems to ensure that the city collects all that is due to it and meets all its obligations,” he said.
Amad said the city would strive to improve its credit rating and attract new investors. There were also plans at hand to bring business back into the city and create mass employment for young people.
“We are going to continue finding the most innovative ways of creating greater investor confidence in the City of Joburg; our people should have jobs in the City of Joburg,” he said.
Concerning matters of energy security, Amad said the government of local unity under his leadership would adopt plans that had been drawn up at the time of former ANC mayor Mpho Moerane to add extra power to the city’s grid by adding other sources of energy.
“This means that energy security should be one of the key priorities. This means that we will look beyond Eskom in order to guarantee energy security for our people and businesses, and we will be seized with efforts to find electricity from other sources, including renewables,” he said.
Amad said there would be a fierce campaign to fix roads, storm water drainage systems and potholes. He stated that the most basic services, such as park and pavement clearing, should be considered normal, and that there would be a greater emphasis on the repair of all critical infrastructure.
He said street vendors were important, but more engagement would be needed to ensure that they traded in designated spaces. Safety in the city was also at the new mayor’s heart, with plans to enforce greater policing in the city centre.
The Star