Mr Mayor, we are watching you

It would be far too easy for us to dismiss Joburg mayor Dada Morero’s comments as cocky and unrealistic that he can keep the city clean well after all the international delegates have left after the G20 summit hosted here.

In the lead-up to the summit, Joburg residents dismissed efforts to beautify the city by maintenance and clean-up teams as a farce and a disgrace, comparing it to putting lipstick on a pig.

For far too long, local government has allowed the city to fall apart with no clear maintenance plan.

Broken traffic lights, pothole-riddled roads and unkempt pavements are a common sight.

But Morero and his crew upped their game before the G20, making sure highways, verges and embankments left a lasting impression on international delegates.

And Morero insists it won’t stop there, promising: “We will be able to sustain this. It is simple, check us on Tuesday; if we are not on the ground on Tuesday, then it means that we were doing it for the G20.”

ALSO READ: ‘Check us on Tuesday’: Morero says Joburg will stay clean after G20 Summit

Excuse us for being cynical, but we’ll believe it when we see it, even though we need to give credit where credit is due as the G20 was, by and large, successful.

We are also all for politicians and government officials putting their money where their mouth is.

“I said this when I became mayor that the city has the capacity to turn around and I said part of my work is to ensure that I deal with the constraints and the management teams to ensure that I unblock what has been making them not to move as managers and as leaders,” Morero said.

“I think the G20 was successful. From a logistics point of view, there is traffic management and we have been able to facilitate the movement of heads of state, delegates … Things have been smooth.”

Talk about putting your head on the chopping block.

Over to you, Mr Mayor. We are watching.

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