The City of Tshwane has formally joined hands with AfriForum as part of an initiative to encourage communities to maintain their neighbourhoods and surrounding spaces, by cutting grass in public places and repairing potholes, among other services.
Mayor Cilliers Brink and AfriForum chief executive Kallie Kriel sealed the partnership in Valhalla, where they cut the grass at Furman Park.
The partnership is part of a project called community upliftment precinct, which was launched last year. Residents, businesses and communities are motivated to collaborate with the City in maintaining and improving public infrastructure within their residential, business and industrial areas.
Brink hailed the agreement as giving effect to a partnership for the City to work with organised communities to achieve what it could not do on its own.
“There is a great deal of resources, enthusiasm and knowledge in civil society organisations, local communities,” he said.
Brink added that the City already had agreements with Outsurance and the Hennops River Revival.
“This is one in a series that we are doing in order to empower local communities against what we can do together but we can’t do alone. Of course there will be risks; there are risks in any new approach. But the biggest risk is not to allow well-organised communities to assist the municipality to do functions such as grass-cutting and pothole repairs and so forth,” he said.
The mayor added that the cooperation with AfriForum was set out to create a framework in which both parties understood their obligations with an objective of jointly serving communities.
According to AfriForum, services and projects that form part of the cooperation include, the promotion of community-based waste removal and clean-up projects, grass cutting, the removal of alien plant species, and the identification of illegal dumping sites.
Kriel said: “Organised communities that act in the interest of their own communities in fact create a new reality in which a do-it-yourself culture is not only encouraged but can also flourish. Limited resources necessitate the optimal use of expertise and energy from within local communities for the benefit of the community.”
Tshwane’s MMC for community safety, Grandi Theunissen, also an FF Plus councillor expressed said he was, “looking forward to working with all interested parties to promote community safety as well as the overall wellbeing of Tshwane communities”.
“The services covered in the cooperative agreement include safety and security, repairing potholes, maintenance of parks (adoption of parks), assistance with grass cutting and other community-focused initiatives,” he said.
The agreement between the parties is valid for a period of three years, but it can be revised and extended.
Pretoria News