Metro improves city
The metro has allocated a considerable portion of the 2014/15 budget to various improvements across the city.
Townships schools will get a lion’s share of the R27.6 billion Tshwane metro 2014/15 budget, as the metro has set aside R150 million to implement the second phase of the free Wifi project in more areas across Pretoria, including Attridgeville, Soshanguve and Mamelodi.
This project will provide free Wifi to 219 schools in these areas and provide more people, especially pupils, with an opportunity to keep up with today’s technology through accessing various resources via the internet.
The 2014/15 budget will come into effect from 1 July 2014 and run until 30 June 2015. Tshwane Executive Mayor Councillor Kgosientso Ramokgopa told Rekord at the Budget Speech Business Breakfast at the Southern Sun Hotel in Arcadia on Wednesday that the project would have the ability to accommodate one million users at the same time once completed.
The breakfast took place after the mayor presented the 2014/15 budget at the council chamber in the Sammy Marks building in the city centre on Monday. The metro is also looking forward to implementing the third phase of the project next year. They hope that they will have covered the whole city of Pretoria by the end of 2016. “We will continue providing money for the project to accelerate its roll-out,” the mayor said.
Ramokgopa explained that the project was a revolution in local government, since the public sector was committing towards knowledge production. “With this little contribution, we are optimistic that we will see the fruits of our labour in the future.” Free Wifi is already available at Church Square, the University of Pretoria in Hatfield, the Tshwane North College, the Mamelodi Community Centre and the Tshwane University of Technology in Soshanguve.
The number of people accessing the internet at these free Wifi zones increases almost daily. More and more pupils, in particular, are benefitting from the service.
Soshanguve has seen R40m allocated to the health and social development of the area, with the new Gazankulu Clinic, upgrading and extending of Zithobeni Clinic and upgrading of ECD and day-care centres being carried out.
An amount of R851m will be spent on housing and human settlement. This funding will go towards sewerage systems, low-cost housing, roads and stormwater projects, project-linked housing, the acquisition of land and the Winterveldt land management programme.
Approximately R150m will be spent on the Tsosoloso project, which involves the renewal, upgrading and/or improvement of the Mabopane taxi rank, Sausville walkways, Hammanskraal bridge, Seeiso streetscape, Hammanskraal roads and the Solomon Mahlangu Museum.
