Johannesburg - The Chair of Chairs in the City of Joburg, Lloyd Philips, said the city was on its way to ensuring excellent service delivery to residents after the approval of a R2 billion loan the city needs from the Development Bank of South Africa (DBSA).
The loan was approved in council yesterday, and most of the councillors voted in favour of the loan. The loan would ensure that service providers are paid, SMMEs are paid, and that service delivery projects can continue.
“We need this loan. The DA had left the municipality in financial shambles. We really need this loan to start repairing the city,” he said.
Philips, whose role is to keep the executive and MMCs accountable, said he would keep a watchful eye on projects and other plans that were in the pipeline.
These include projects on repairing roads, building bridges and other uplifting community projects.
Philips said he was concerned about the dirt around the streets of the Joburg CBD. He said the government of local unity was doing its best to ensure that entities like Pikitup are efficient and work for the community.
“People are well aware of the problems that we have, trash being one of them. We should provide an augmented service where citizens work with the municipality to ensure that they live and work in clean areas. We should allow locals to form their own corporatives and solve the problems in their neighbourhoods,” he said.
Phillips said some of the problems that the municipality faced were inherited from the previous DA government, which allegedly left the municipality broke.
He said residents of Joburg should give the government of local unity a chance and work with the leadership of the city to improve service delivery.
“The DA was not honest about how things were actually in the municipality. There were problems all over, and some reports were hidden,” he said.
Meanwhile, opposition parties questioned the reasoning behind the tabling of the DBSA loan. The opposition described the government of local unity as being hypocritical. Parties such as the IFP said they were shocked that the leadership of the city rejected the report when they were on the opposition benches, but were now backtracking and seeking the loan.
Philips said he would work hard to ensure that the government of local unity was strong and stable.
The Star