WATCH: City of Joburg consults public on draft policy for informal settlements
The City of Johannesburg's Human Settlements Department held a public participation process on the Draft Informal Settlements Policy at the South Rand Recreation Centre, Welfare Park, on April 23.
The aim was to get the public's input to guide the city on how to address service delivery, upgrading projects and long-term development in and around the community.
It was a chance to be heard and influence decisions directly impacting the residents' future in these informal settlements.
MMC for Human Settlements, Mlungisi Mabaso, addressed the public, stating some challenges and how the policy would help pave the way forward.
'In this draft policy, we want to address some of the challenges you face as residents of these informal settlements – how we provide basic services, how we co-ordinate the entities in providing the services and how we manage the informal settlements in Johannesburg.
'We have more than 352 informal settlements in Johannesburg and have yet to formalise the first informal settlement. In that process, we encountered challenges because you can come to an informal settlement and find out they have 300 households or shacks. Then you plan. When you go back with the budget, they are now 700. You then have to go back again and re-adjust your plan,' he said.
He said this makes it difficult to work. The policy looks at how to deal with situations when informal settlements are on undeveloped land, wetlands and privately owned land.
'In the informal settlements are people who own multiple shacks, people who own shacks in different informal settlements, and others living somewhere else but renting out shacks they own. They illegally sell electricity and water, while others take the communal taps and put them in their yards.
'We are developing this policy because we want a co-ordinated way of addressing these issues. If we don't deal with these issues, the informal settlements will grow in Johannesburg, and we will not formalise them because of these challenges.
'We've also realised that our co-ordination for providing basic services in the informal settlements is unco-ordinated. Johannesburg Water does its own thing when it goes to the informal settlement, and City Power also comes in without considering the formalisation process. That is why some informal settlements are unelectrified,' explained Mabaso.
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