Critics have called some of Mayor Parks Tau’s ambitious plans for the future of the City of Johannesburg (COJ) ‘pie in the sky’, but during his State of the City Address yesterday (Soca) there were plenty to boast about as far as the past year goes.
This includes:
• The building of a 1000 quality social housing and rentals places.
• Resurfacing 320km of roads.
• Upgrading 44km of gravel roads to surfaced roads.
• Facilitating R1 billion value of investment and business transactions.
• A five per cent reduction in the mortality rate in fire and pedestrian accidents through rendering quality emergency services.
• In order to improve service delivery a daily nerve centre that connects all front line departments have been established in order to manage rapid responses to areas of service breakdowns.
• The city has achieved 96 per cent capital expenditure in the last financial year that translates into R7.3 bliion.
• The introduction of Advocate Sduduzo Gumede as the first municipal ombudsman for the city.
• The establishment of a fraud hotline that lead to the dismissal of several city employees as well as 42 arrests.
Tau also spoke at length on how much the city has already achieved in terms of its ‘Corridors of Freedom’ project and what it plans in this regard for the near future.
