Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Zweli Mkhize will lead an inter-governmental task team to meet protest leaders in Alexandra on Wednesday after demonstrations in recent weeks put the township in the spotlight ahead of the 8 May elections.

With elections 20 days away, the ANC and DA continue to bicker over who has neglected and disrespected the people of Alexandra most: the ANC during its decades running Johannesburg or the DA’s Mayor Herman Mashaba for taking weeks to visit the township during protests.

Both agree it has been neglected. In Mashaba’s planned meeting in Marlboro on Monday, he was going to echo some of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s sentiments in Alex days earlier.

“There is absolutely no question, the people of Alexandra have serious and long-standing grievances about their lived experiences. After 25 years of democracy, living conditions should be better here in Alexandra,” began the mayor’s 87-page presentation on the city’s draft Integrated Development Plan (IDP).

Mkhize’s team, appointed by Ramaphosa, includes the ministers of co-operative governance, human settlements, water and sanitation, environmental affairs, home affairs, police, and rural development and land reform. They will liaise with different spheres of government to address housing, poverty, crime and immigration concerns in the area.

The City of Johannesburg already has a plan, which Mashaba could not present on Monday evening after his meeting was disrupted by protesters, but it provides an indication of how the DA-led administration plans to develop Alex.

On housing, the city’s IDP includes plans to refurbish and redevelop the Madala and Helen Joseph hostels, allocating R10-million and R20-million respectively in the next financial year. Consultants are expected to finalise an audit of the Madala Hostel’s needs by month’s end. A contractor has not been appointed to develop the Helen Joseph Hostel as one must first be found from the area.

The city also plans to do minor repairs on both hostels, which are dilapidated and unsafe.

Other housing developments in the area include a planned 252 units in Lombardy West, 1,000 units in Linbro Park and another 6,000 in Linksfield. Construction for most of these units is scheduled to begin in 2020/21. Criticism of housing developments in the past has centred on their allocation with locals claiming that they are overlooked in favour of foreigners.

The IDP also explains that the new Thoko Mngoma Clinic is now operational and a new clinic on 4^th avenue is complete and will be launched soon. A drug and rehabilitation centre was opened in River Park in August 2018.

Land occupations and the erection of illegal structures have been a key concern in Alexandra. The IDP says the Joburg Metro Police Department has established a unit to respond to invasions and secure properties and building inspectors will attend to illegal builds and issue contravention notices and penalties.

The city plans to install 100 new street lights in Alex, allocate R20-million to the local Vasco da Gama substation to improve power supply and provide electricity to 686 informal stands.

The area is prone to flooding along the Jukskei River and capacity assessments have started to determine the flood lines to address the issue. The Johannesburg Roads Agency and department of environment and infrastructure services are working on a plan to secure the river bank within three years.

“Refuse collection rounds are being increased from once a week to twice a week starting this week,” the IDP says. Many Alexandra residents have complained about poor refuse collection from Pikitup, which the IDP said would start “extensive operations”, particularly around the area’s hostels.

On economic development, the municipality plans to open the Alexandra Opportunity Centre in 2019, which will provide assistance for job seekers and small businesses. Construction of a new automotive hub is 98% complete and will receive R13.5-million in the coming financial year, said Mashaba’s IDP.

On Tuesday, the ANC criticised Mashaba’s administration for attempting to address protesters’ concerns in a scheduled IDP meeting rather than a separate event.

“At the heart of the residents’ discontent is the lack of service delivery by the municipality. The mayor should visit Alexandra with the sole purpose of tackling this. The fact that the meeting was held in Marlboro also reveals how it was not about directly addressing the issue at hand but rather about masking the fact that he is an inept leader,” said the ANC Johannesburg in a statement.

“It should be highlighted that, as it stands, the mayor has failed to face and address the residents of Alexandra, but has instead been churning out media statements, playing his infamous blame game,” it continued.

On Tuesday, the department of co-operative governance outlined protesters’ key concerns: housing, poor service delivery, especially regarding sewerage, water and electricity, illegal shacks, immigration, refuse removal and jobs.

On Wednesday, Mashaba said he welcomed the task team. “I have committed the city to this process in order to bring the kind of solutions that we were to present at the IDP session on Monday evening,” he said in a statement.

The mayor believes he had a plan. But then again, so did his predecessors in the ANC administration. DM