Mayor of Joburg delivers her first Soca

The Mayor for the City of Johannesburg (CoJ), Dr Mpho Phalatse, gave her first State of the City Address (SOCA) on April 21 in Braamfontein.

Phalatse started her speech by emphasising the fact that the city needs to heal, saying residents are blessed to live in one of the most remarkable cities in the world.

She asked the councillors, “The biggest question on everyone’s mind is ‘can these dry bones come to life and this city truly be restored?”

“The city can and will be restored, with each of us doing our part. We need to start by taking responsibility and uniting behind a common mission – to love our city, to nurture, cherish and protect her for generations to come.

From resisting the urge to litter, break the law, dump illegally, damage infrastructure, steal manhole covers and whole traffic lights or vandalise critical infrastructure, to reporting such incidents when we see them happen, to being faithful in paying our rates and taxes, fines and levies. We each have a role to play in preventing the further decay of our city while rebuilding it at the same time.”

Main focus

Phalatse also outlined her seven focus points: for CoJ to be a city that gets the basics right, a safe city, a caring city, a business-friendly city, an inclusive city, a well-run city and a smart city.

She also mentioned multiple projects CoJ is looking at, including the revamping of hostels and building 3 500 new housing units and 1 108 affordable rent-controlled units in the Diepsloot, Midrand, Fourways and surrounding areas.

The multi-party government is looking at alternative funding schemes due to shrinking grants from the provincial government.

“MMC for Finance Julie Suddaby will embark on an investor roadshow to raise the funds and attract much-needed investment to fund the city’s infrastructure projects. We also need residents to pay monies owed to the city. We have enhanced our revenue collection programme through Operation Buya Mthetho. Residents, businesses and government departments have been responsive to the Buya Mthetho campaign and have come forward to pay their outstanding municipal bills,” said Phalatse.

“Understanding that the economy has not been kind to all residents, especially over the last two years due to the pandemic, we have re-instituted the Debt Rehabilitation Programme that aims to assist defaulting customers to bring their outstanding municipal accounts up to date.

Qualifying customers will receive a 50% debt write-off, with a further write-off on the outstanding debt over three years, if they comply with all the conditions associable with the programme.

Council will soon be presented with a report recommending radical changes to the qualifying criteria. For example, 100% of debt above 90 days will be written off where the applicant is a pensioner or registered indigent customer. We also ask Council to vote to include old age homes, orphanages and body corporate account holders in the criteria.”