Herman Mashaba, the Democratic Alliance’s mayoral candidate for Johannesburg in the upcoming local government elections‚ led a march for jobs today to the office of the city’s executive mayor‚ Parks Tau.
Another 111 000 jobs were shed in Ekurhuleni and 30 000 in Tshwane. This was according to Statistics South Africa whom the DA quoted to the few hundred DA supporters who attended the march.
In his address, Mashaba outlined six key measures he plans to execute to tackle unemployment in his first term of office:
» Give entrepreneurs the opportunity to start new businesses by establishing innovation centres providing information on investment opportunities, licensing, land use, regulatory compliance; subsidising the leasing of commercial spaces for entrepreneurs; and ensuring that Joburg’s BEE programme is truly broad-based;
» Cut corruption and wasteful expenditure by opening up the tender processes so that there is maximum transparency;
» Budget more money for programmes to help unemployed matriculants and young people find jobs; and
» Increase the budget for maintenance and introduce artisan programmes to train technicians and essential staff for rapid response to water leaks.
Mashaba said he would also break up Pikitup into smaller service providers in each region to end the monopoly on refuse collection and thus keep the city clean.
He added that continuing to employ one company exclusively has put the City’s refuse removal and people’s health at high risk.
Political parties have been rallying hard towards August 3, when the local government elections are expected to take place.
Pictures by Zahra Haider