President Cyril Ramaphosa has urged the City of Johannesburg to continue the work to revamp the city and bring it to its glory days.
He was speaking during the CEO-City Cleanup Partnership Programme held in Kliptown, Johannesburg, on Friday morning.
The President pushed back on criticism that the drive to restore the city’s golden shine is “flash in the pan” and driven solely by preparations for the G20 Leaders’ Summit taking place at Nasrec next weekend.
“I have said that many cities around the world…they do tend to use that moment of a summit or conference as an impetus to revamp themselves, to spruce themselves up.
“That is what we all do when we know that there are visitors coming. We clean up, we hide dirt or whatever. But this time, we shouldn’t hide it, we should clean it up,” he said.
President Ramaphosa asserted that the work being carried out in the city will be followed through even after the G20 Leaders’ Summit.
He further emphasised that a city-wide revamp is not unique to only Johannesburg.
“It is not going to be a one-day event. It is going to be that we will want to take through for many months, a year and more because the work to reposition this city is quite enormous, but it is doable.
“Many cities around the world have gone through what we are going through here in Johannesburg. They have revamped themselves and there are big cities with big names and histories,” the President noted.
President Ramaphosa highlighted that as the economic heartbeat of the continent, Johannesburg’s upliftment is critical.
“It is important to restore Johannesburg to its former glory. This is the most important city on the continent.
“We may not be as populace as Lagos, but we are the financial centre of the continent. We have the biggest stock exchange on the continent in Johannesburg, and we’ve got leading corporates that operate here.
“A word that must be passed to those…involved in running the city is that let us ensure that we execute the plans that we have,” he said.
The Working Group
In March this year, President Ramaphosa announced the Presidential Johannesburg Working Group (PJWG) in an effort to resolve what he called the “enormous challenges” facing the city.
Now, the President revealed that the working group has faced challenges including city officials “not really paying attention to the work that needs to be done by the working group”.
“All I can say is that in order to get Johannesburg to go up the ladder, we do need everyone’s hands on deck. We do need officials whose job it is – on a daily basis – to do the work that needs to be done.
“Let us fold our sleeves and make our hands dirty. We cannot and must not allow Johannesburg to go down into the doldrums. We must get Johannesburg to reach for the sky,” he said.
The President noted that the venue for the G20 Leaders’ Summit is “ready”.
He added that he’d like to see that the Johannesburg “will be a city that people will remember once they come here”.
“Johannesburg is well known world over and when we emerge from the G20, we will have the Johannesburg declaration in the life of the G20.
“It will be remembered, and I want the memory for Johannesburg to not only be the substantive issues that we are going to address but also to mean that people found Johannesburg a really beautiful city, a clean city and a city that is going somewhere,” President Ramaphosa said. – SAnews.gov.za
