Plans in motion to rejuvenate inner city
"We will open our inner city for development, create jobs, make our communities safe and restore Krugersdorp to the city of opportunities it can be."
Krugersdorp has the potential to be a vibrant and opportunity-filled city, but due to the number of dilapidated buildings, drug-related activities, prostitution, illegal water and electricity connections and high poverty rate in the inner city, job creation and community safety took a back seat under the previous administration.
“However,” said Executive Mayor of Mogale City, Councillor Lynn Pannall, “I have been meeting with relevant stakeholders to investigate numerous solutions to the problem of inner city decay. This has led to the establishment of an inner-city rejuvenation programme.”
“This is a tremendous undertaking, but we owe it to our youth, our many unemployed residents and the poor to tackle these issues head-on.”
Many of the inner city buildings have been hijacked or abandoned, their owners having absconded or moved overseas. Many of these buildings are used as drug houses or brothels, and pose a threat to the safety of residents.
“We intend to serve several of these buildings with notices and take our proof of drug-dealing, prostitution or dilapidation to a court of law to enable us to get court orders to have these buildings demolished or cleared,” the Mayor went on.
The lack of electricity and water in the inner city has also led to illegal connections, but because these connections are simply reconnected after the council disconnects them, the council has now begun cutting the wires.
“We are also aware that there could be corrupt police officers, and if they are identified they will be reported to the police services.
“The municipality has adopted an Inner-City Regeneration Programme which has among other goals the development of a Municipal Precinct. In pursuance of that, we have been approached by a number of developers who are interested in the inner city development of Krugersdorp by way of renovation and rehabilitation of old buildings.
“We are therefore looking into declaring an urban development zone with the aim of allowing tax rebates on the expenditure of these companies in their effort to uplift the community. By focusing our attentions on these forgotten inner-city buildings, we will not only tackle the drugs and prostitution problem in Krugersdorp head-on, we will also open our inner city for development, create jobs, make our communities safe and restore Krugersdorp to the city of opportunities it can be.”
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