MEC, Bekkersdal residents meet over renewal project

Thursday, August 14, 2014

Johannesburg - Gauteng MEC for Cooperative Governance and Human Settlements, Jacob Mamabolo, wants everyone involved in the Bekkersdal development project to declare their business interests.

On Thursday, MEC Mamabolo met Greater Westonaria Concerned Residents’ Association (GWCRA) in the mining town of Libanon in Gauteng’s West Rand. The MEC listened to the residents’ grievances around the project, which is aimed at giving Bekkersdal a facelift.

“One of the issues that we are going to explore quite seriously is … a special register to declare the business interests that everybody has. This includes municipal and provincial officials, community leaders and everyone involved in the development project.

“We want to know who the business people are… We are going to create a register of business interests so that the community projects and interventions are not held back by the business people that we don’t know.

“Everybody who is involved in any development project must declare their business interests because what led to the collapse of the Bekkersdal Urban Renewal Project is that there were serious allegations of vested business interests.

“We don’t want this particular process to collapse because of business interests… so everybody will have to declare their business interests, including me,” he said.

MEC Mamabolo said the special register for business interests will be made public.

He said the project will have huge gains for job creation and bringing business to the area,” he said.

The Bekkersdal Urban Renewal Project was launched in 2004 as a service delivery initiative meant to improve the lives of residents through projects such as building of houses, street lighting and cleaning of sewers. However, residents say community development projects have not materialised.

Moatlhodi Molefe of the GWCRA said they were pleased with the successful meeting with MEC Mamabolo.

“As a community, we are really happy about the outcome of this meeting with the MEC.  We have established a fundamental consensus, which will see us moving forward together,” he said.

However, Molefe said the challenges faced by Westonaria municipality still need to be addressed.

Both MEC Mamabolo and the association agreed to meet again on August 21 to chart a way forward for the project. - SAnews.gov.za