North residents urged to participate in Tshwane’s project

The interim Ward 2 councillor in Pretoria North, Dana Wannenburg has urged residents and local representatives to participate in the Community Upliftment Precinct (CUP) project.

The Tshwane metro launched the initiative to improve and maintain public infrastructure within residential, business and industrial areas.

According to Wannenburg, the project will work in the north only if residents join hands and help each other.

“It is a great initiative and we so far have seen glimpses of the positive impact it has on the community,” he said.

The initiative enables residents, businesses and communities to enter into a formal agreement to support the metro in maintaining and improving service delivery.

Wannenburg said they have to implement an Adopt-a-traffic-light initiative in his ward.

“We have noticed a problem of non-working streetlights and traffic lights in our area.

“We want to make sure that some of the traffic lights are connected to generators of nearby shops so that they can operate when the power goes out,” he said.

The CUP initiatives were approved at the last council meeting in November last year.

“Local representatives must start using this initiative so that they can help their areas grow.

“If you take a look at Region 1 townships, they don’t really pay attention to the CUP. That’s quite concerning,” said Wannenburg.

Community activist Quentin Meyer said the CUP initiative is an excellent one as residents have a chance to look after their communities.

“It really helps a lot. People are now able to take care of their communities,” said Meyer.

Resident Nomathemba Sambo said she wasn’t aware of the initiative but is keen to help anywhere she can.

“Truly speaking, I didn’t know of such an initiative, but I think it is a good one.

“I always see people cleaning the streets when I’m driving around. All this time I thought it was the municipality,” said Sambo.

Sambo said credit should go to those who always make sure that Pretoria North and surrounding areas are kept clean on a daily basis.

“Credit must go to those volunteers because it is not easy to wake up and spend the whole day on the streets just to make sure your area is clean,” she said.

Peter Ntombela said such initiatives should be turned into job opportunities.

“Most of these people don’t get paid for what they are doing. They’re doing this out of love but in a way it is unfair.

Why not take this initiative and employ locals to do this type of work and get something at the end of the day?

It is a good initiative, but the metro must turn this into a job opportunity for residents like the EPWP thing,” Ntombela said.

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