Plans to bring rapid service delivery to Tshwane are underway, Tshwane mayor Solly Msimanga has announced.
“The people of Tshwane deserve so much better than what the city delivered before,” he said.
He told Rekord the council needed to grow the economy of Tshwane by making it attractive to investors, which was further reason to eliminate corruption and create jobs.
Msimanga had already cut out expensive catering for dinners, stopped the acquisition of luxury cars, opened the tender process to the public, given new BMWs to the Tshwane metro police’s anti-hijack unit and banned the blue-light brigade from the capital’s streets.
The 10 new BMWs, with an estimated value of over R5 million, had been bought for members of the previous ANC-led administration’s mayoral committee.
Mayoral spokesperson Matthew Gerstner told Rekord that Msimanga was working hard to change how Tshwane metro delivered services.
“The mayor’s short-term plan is cutting all the wasteful spending and ridding Tshwane of corrupt officials.”
He said Msimanga had set targets for his newly appointed mayoral committee.
“Better service delivery is the mayor’s priority.”
Gerstner said long-term plans would see people in jobs, secure houses and cleaner communities.
“The mayor is adamant that the new council first needs to get the Tshwane metro’s finances in order for the city to be financially sustainable and deliver services.”
Affirming the metro inherited by the new administration was bankrupt, Gerstner said there was no reason Tshwane could not become an economic, industrial, technological, logistics, processing and exporting hub that could create jobs for the people.
“Criminal charges of corruption and fraud had been laid against officials of the previous administration and the mayor would soon be laying more corruption charges against very senior members of the previous ANC administration,” said Gerstner.
He said making the tender process open meant transparency in tender allocations and Tshwane residents could now see where their money was being spent.
“The mayor had issued an instruction to open the tender process to the public so that when the tenders were adjudicated and awarded, people could see for themselves why a tender was awarded.”
Speaking at the El Shaddai Full Gospel church on Sunday morning, Msimanga reminded congregants that he was committed to bringing change to the city.
“Our main priority is to work with the community, which includes churches, clinics and schools.”
“We are here for you. We are a government that will never close its doors on its people.”
Msimanga said he was devoted to improving the lives of Tshwane residents.
He touched on the issue of drugs that he said was a problem that had been plaguing Pretoria for many years.
“Let us work together to eliminate nyaope and other drugs. If we can start cleaning up the streets, we can have our kids back.”
