Great plans for Capital
Delivering his 2015 State of the Capital Address on Thursday, Tshwane executive mayor Kgosientso Ramokgopa made several announcements – the most exciting being that scheduled commercial flights to Cape Town will be operated from Wonderboom Airport from August.
The creation of a city of excellence – where all citizens can live with dignity, pride and equality – was well under way, Tshwane mayor Kgosientso Ramokgopa said on Thursday.
This would be achieved with a firmly-established programme of remaking the capital through radical economic transformation and spatial justice, he said in his 2015 state-of-the-city address.
Ramokgopa made it clear that nothing would detract him from realising his vision for the city.
He announced that SA Airways and SA Airlink would start operating three commercial flights a day from Wonderboom Airport to Cape Town International Airport.
Speaking at Freedom Park, the mayor said Tshwane was the fourth-largest municipal economy in the country. Measured by gross domestic product (GDP), it contributed 10.1 percent to the national GDP.
“Tshwane clearly displays great potential, with relatively high rates of people with higher education, the fastest-growing local economy in South Africa and the second-highest average household income within Gauteng,” the mayor said.
“In 2001, our unemployment rate was over 30% and today it is 21%; more importantly, in 2001 our youth unemployment was over 40% and now it is close to 30%.”
Job creation was high in the agenda of the City and 30 208 Extended Public Works Programme (EPWP) work opportunities had been created between July 2013 and June 2014 with a target of 40 000 by June this year.
He said that one of the City’s proudest achievements during the past months was the provision of free Wi-Fi services to certain areas.
“Today, there are 575 sites that have access to Wi-Fi and by June 2015, another 50 sites will be live. A Re Yeng buses are also Wi-Fi enabled. The City’s vision is to eventually provide Wi-Fi connectivity in every street, every corner and every household in the Capital City,” Ramokgopa said.
Ramokgopa said the City wanted to focus its efforts in four sectors in the next 15 years towards the achievement of Vision 2055, namely education and the knowledge economy; agriculture and agro-processing; business and diplomatic tourism; and the green economy.
He said Tshwane had transferred a significant amount of land by way of donation – over 148 land parcels have been transferred to churches and the taxi industry. The land donated amounted to more than R60m.
“It will give us great pleasure to see land ownership restored to our people. Since the beginning of the financial year, over 4 000 title deeds have been issued and almost 18 000 issued since 2011.”
The City, however, had a total of 8,237 title deeds that remained uncollected by the rightful owners.
The City’s A Re Yeng Rapid Bus Transit project had been operational from January 2015 in Trunk Line 2A from the CBD to Hatfield. He said A Re Yeng fleet had carried 122 864 people from January to March 2015 with an average of a 40 percent increase in daily ridership.
The mayor said a pre-feasibility study for the Light Rail Transit system had been done and was envisaged to complement current transport modes, such as the Gautrain and the A Re Yeng systems.
He said the City had vowed to keep the power stations operational and that 100 MW would be generated by the power stations.
Tshwane was one of the few districts selected as a pilot towards the roll-out of National Health Insurance (NHI) and to this regard, several clinics had been upgraded while new ones were being built.
He announced that the City would be hosting the Gauteng Carnival from 2015 onwards, which will be the biggest cultural spectacle in the Capital City.
On safety and security, the mayor said the metro police department had begun extending its strategic ward-based deployment within Tshwane. It could now be announced that the department had seven operational regional offices providing a metro policing service around the clock.
He said a total of 2 000 metro police trainees would formally graduate by the end of November 2015 and would be deployed to all 105 wards across Tshwane.
As promised in last year’s address, the metro police continued with the roll-out of CCTV cameras and 151 were in operation in the city.
Ramokgopa said a zero tolerance of misconduct based on the underlying precepts of fairness and workplace justice had been adopted.
In this regard, the City had successfully completed 96 forensic investigations during the 2013/2014 financial year and 112 in the current financial year.
A total of 43 matters had been referred for disciplinary action in the current financial year, the mayor said.
View our GALLERY here.
Also read: Mayor and city manager ‘must quit’
Abrupt end to smart electricity meters
Do you have more information about the story? Please send us an email to editorial@rekord.co.za or phone us on 072 435 7717.
For free breaking and community news, visit Rekord’s websites:
For more news and interesting articles, like Rekord on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.
- We have exciting news! We’re offering a free alert to help you always be in the loop. Send an email with the word ‘Subscribe’ to breakingnews@rekord.co.za to receive your free daily breaking news update.
