Protea Glen Fire Station finally unveiled
New fire station to ease strain on the City’s service delivery efforts.
After almost a decade, the Protea Glen Fire Station was finally unveiled on Friday. City of Johannesburg’s MMC for Public Safety Mally Mokoena urged residents to “jealously guard” the state-of-the-art facility which is expected to serve areas surrounding Protea Glen including Naledi, Mapetla, Protea North, Lufereng, and Lenasia.
The new station will help shed some strain that has been experienced by the City of Johannesburg’s Emergency Management Services due to lack of facilities. Residents of Protea and surrounding areas have for many years been dependent on the Jabulani Fire Station.
“The opening of this station is a huge leap towards ensuring that residents receive prompt and efficient services. Effective service delivery means bringing services and facilities closer to where the people are, it means allowing them to enjoy the benefits of the provision of services at their convenience. This fire station will ensure exactly that,” said MMC Mokoena.
The Protea Glen Fire Station is a multipurpose facility that will not only provide emergence services but education as well. Residents, especially children will benefit through water and fire safety education programmes which will be provided at the station.
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Innocent Shibambo has been tasked with managing the educational side of things at the station which comes with even a swimming pool. At the helm of the Protea Glen, Fire Station is Johannesburg’s EMS acting chief Rapulane Monageng who said the facility competes with the best in the province. About 50 highly skilled firefighters will be deployed in the station which is one of the ten BESAFE Centres of the City of Johannesburg.
When an announcement was made that the new fire station will finally be unveiled, some residents on social media expressed concerns about the lack of fire trucks in the City. The executive mayor, Geoff Makhubo addressed these concerns by announcing that the City has received 10 fire and rescue vehicles previously paid for in an irregular and unlawful R172 million contract awarded by the previous administration.
“The building of Protea Glen Fire Station is the premise upon a strategic goal to increase on the accessibility of the services to the community. These facilities are an embodiment of the City of Johannesburg Public Safety Department’s commitment to building safe communities and therefore a safer city. As a city, we own responsibility to ensure that we save lives and properties of all the residents of the City the hence the building of the Protea Glen Fire station was critical,” said mayor Makhubo in a statement.
The mayor also shared the MMC’s sentiments with regards to the protection of public facilities and urged residents to play their part in making sure that the station is protected.
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