He spoke during the wreath laying ceremony to commemorate 21 years since the death of the former struggle hero who was shot dead in Dawn Park in April 1993.
“By upholding the campaign, it goes to the spine of our determination as government to defeat our triple challenges – poverty, unemployment and inequality,” said the mayor.
During the ceremony, the mayor reflected on the story of Ekurhuleni and the campaign by highlighting progress made in housing, health and poverty.
“Working together with the Gauteng Provincial Government, we have constructed approximately 90 000 houses and serviced nearly 120 000 stands since 1994.
“This work has not been in vain, with the average household size in Ekurhuleni going down from 3.7 people in 1996 to three people by 2011. This clearly shows the reduction in overcrowding with especially poor formal households.
“We are, however, the first to acknowledge that there is still a lot of work to be done, considering that we have a total of 119 informal settlements.”
Regarding health, he said that the metro has built 98 clinics since 1994.
“In addition, during April we will be opening five new clinics in various parts of the metro.
“We will also continue to render quality healthcare to the people of the city. In this regard, all hospitals and six of our clinics in the region provide male circumcision, while we have placed 35 000 patients on anti-retro-viral therapy and treatment.”
In regards to eradicating poverty, he said job creation remains a main driving force of the metro.
“Another piece of exciting news on this front is that the city is continuing with the programme of the 20 Vukuphile Learner Contractors that were appointed and empowered since 2013 on a three-year development contract.
“Moreover we are steaming right ahead with the programme of developing emerging contractors. Nineteen learner contractors and 29 supervisors have successfully completed this training, which cost the municipality R56-million.
“More positive news in the city’s jobs battle plan and war against poverty, is that we expect to create at least 5 000 new jobs as a result of new investment, and a further 3 500 community work opportunities through tree planting, river cleaning, grass cutting and drainage maintenance and flood management among others,” he concluded.
