MAYOR MOYA AND MMC RAMABODU INTENSIFY TATANE CAMPAIGN IN MAMELODI

City of Tshwane Municipality Mayor Dr Nasiphi Moya and MMC for Agriculture and Environmental Affairs Obakeng Ramabodu descended upon the township of Mamelodi on Thursday to intensify the Andries Tatane Clean-up Campaign.

The campaign entails making sure that all regions of Tshwane are kept clean at all times; there is no illegal dumping; waste removal is prioritised and by-laws regarding erection of housing structures are adhered to.

According to Ramabodu, the clean-up campaign was named after a resident of Ficksburg in the Free State 33-year-old Andries Tatane, who was shot and killed by the police during a protest for service delivery in that area in April 2011.

“We are of the opinion that the name of Andries Tatane would resonate with people living in the townships to understand that service delivery must be prioritised, but what has brought us to Mamelodi today is the fact that some residents of Mamelodi have developed a culture of littering on Tsamaya Road and together with the Mayor we are going to embark on a door-to-door initiative to inform residents that they must comply with waste management by-laws because if found littering, a resident might be fined up to R5000,” explained Ramabodu.

“We want to turn the space next to the local railway station into a fully-fledged park and people who have been staying and sleeping there have already been relocated from that piece of land,” he said.

“Our intention is to clean up all regions of Tshwane including all the townships and we want to demonstrate that service delivery must not only be confined to affluent areas but must also be brought to areas like townships,” he said.

He pointed out that skip bins will be installed but the Municipality must make sure that the skip bins are not left unattended because unattended skip bins lead to corpses and abandoned newly-born babies being thrown therein.

“Littering is barbaric and and we are going to make sure that by-laws are adhered to,” vowed Ramabodu.

“Our principle is that we don’t want the residents of Tshwane to go through what the late Andries Tatane went through, and we work with ward Councillors in our efforts to deliver services to the residents,” said Mayor Moya.

She expressed grief about the fact that trees that had previously been planted at the Tsamaya Park have, for some unknown reasons, all been uprooted.

“In the evenings we clean up the CBD and during the day we concentrate on cleaning up townships,” she said.

The Mayor announced that there is no tender whatsoever regarding the clean-up campaign; that all people working on the campaign have been hired and paid directly by the City of Tshwane Municipality and that the equipment being used belongs to the City of Tshwane Municipality.

Dr Moya said the main message behind the cleaning campaign is that the dignity of residents must be restored and that the Municipality doesn’t want to see kids growing up with a mentality that dirt and littering is normal, as it is not.

45-year-old Helen Khumalo who stays at the Eerstefabrieke Hostel told Tshwane Talks that she came to volunteer her services in the clean-up campaign because most parts of Mamelodi are filthy and she also complained that foreigners are occupying many spaces with their business activities; leading to the township being littered with filth.

5 Jacaranda trees were planted at Tsamaya Park during the clean-up campaign, while ten of them were planted along Tsamaya Road, which is the main road in Mamelodi township.