POLOKO TAU
JOBURG mayor Parks Tau has urged the city’s youth to participate in the council’s review of its long-term plan on growth and development.
He was speaking to about 100 youths at the Walter Sisulu Square of Dedication hall in Kliptown, Soweto, yesterday.
The council has been consulting residents on the city’s Growth Development Strategy (GDS) 2040, which carries the motto “we are all players”. The document is to be launched on October 20.
Tau took the youth through the document’s chapters, saying the City of Joburg took lessons from other cities such as New York.
“We’re not an island. We are part of the global village. We share our own experience with them. The constitution of the country enjoins us to be a developmental local government and we do this through interventions that would allow us to identify challenges and opportunities and seek solutions together,” he said.
“A developmental local government goes into the communities, works with the communities to identify challenges and works with them to find solutions and create opportunities.”
Tau said with GDS the city sought to address poverty, which he said was the result of apartheid.
He said 42 percent of households across the city were going to bed without food for at least three to 10 days a month.
Tau said the GDS aimed to estimate the city’s population by 2040.
Tau said the City of Joburg had also looked at “smart cities” and “how we can break the digital divide”.
He said GDS 2040’s intention was “to develop the future of Joburg for its people with its people”.