Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi and Members of the Executive Council took the Ntirhisano community outreach programme to Zola, Soweto, on Sunday.
The delegation used the outreach to engage the community on electricity and safety challenges.
Residents said the electricity issue had contributed to the high levels of criminality and blamed the lack of police visibility and slow turnaround time as some of the reasons the community found itself in ruins. Other issues raised by the community include drugs, housing, and unemployment.
Addressing the community at eMzansi Park, Lesufi said the provincial government is dedicating its resources to challenge crime head-on.
The first way to confront crime in every street is the presence of police, which must be available immediately when a crime happens.
“I am proud to say that we are recruiting 6000 young people, some of whom are coming from this community. I want to commit to you that in every ward, there will be a presence of police 24 hours, and there will be a car patrolling every 24 hours in every ward in the entire Gauteng,” said Lesufi.
He reiterated that the province will use technology to assist in fighting and monitoring crime.
“We have started a process now every ward and major area, the parks, schools, taverns, sporting facilities, and taxi ranks all those areas we are putting high-definition CCTVs cameras to all those particular communities,” he said, adding that the government is currently setting up the infrastructure.
With the country-wide power cuts underway, Lesufi said the CCTVs will be meaningless.
He promised residents that the Gauteng government was looking at immediate resolutions to tackle the issues raised by the community.
“Even though we do not have the mandate to run the issue of electricity but as the provincial government led by you, we will not fold our arms and say there is nothing we can do. We will be with you in communities and structures so we can resolve the problem,” he said, noting President Cyril Ramaphosa’s meetings with the leadership of Eskom and the national energy crisis committee.
Lesufi also used his address to reaffirm his stances on the scrapping of Soweto’s electricity debt, citing that this was necessary.
“I know that we are unemployed. However, we must agree on a process, and that is to protect those that are unemployed and the elderly that can’t pay but ensure those that have businesses in our townships must pay for electricity.”
According to Eskom, Soweto owes the power utility almost R5 billion, with only 40% of the residents buying and paying for electricity.
Eskom has indicated that it is dealing with an exponentially high number of failed mini-substations and transformers in Soweto due to the network becoming overloaded caused by illegal connections; meter bypasses and tampering and unauthorised operations on the electricity network.
Meanwhile, the premier said he has heard the community’s problems which he said are the motivation for the executive to roll its sleeves.
“I can assure community members this problem will be resolved, and all of us will be happy. We must commit ourselves to protect our communities and infrastructure to ensure that this school functions with electricity and without fear that they will switch off.”
By Thabo Bodibe
