Johannesburg - DA Joburg mayoral candidate Herman Mashaba believes he can solve Joburg’s housing problems and negotiate land purchases to settle the city’s informal residents.
He doesn’t believe that handing out handouts is sustainable.
“When people are working, they are able to do a lot of things for themselves, they don’t have to rely on the government giving them food parcels,” he said on Monday.
“We will address housing by ensuring that where the government is not able to build houses, we go out and provide infrastructure and develop stands with proper services like water, roads, electricity and sewerage.”
Mashaba, who has until now taken the DA’s race for the Joburg hot seat as a lone wolf, was speaking at the unveiling of the DA’s councillors-elect at Turffontein Racecourse.
If elected mayor he would conduct land audits to determine what properties the metro owned and deliver title deeds to citizens who've been living in the city for between 50 and 60 years. The land must be developed so that people could have the dignity of living in areas with proper infrastructure.
Mashaba said his vision for the city, anchored on job creation and creating an enabling environment for entrepreneurs to start and grow their businesses, would ensure that people didn’t rely on the government to build them houses. If the government did not have land to house Joburg residents, Mashaba said, the land had to be bought from someone.
“When you let the free-market system operate, as the government, you must be able to negotiate, but we are not going to take land without paying for it. I will put in the best negotiators to get me that land at good prices.”
The DA paraded 250 councillors-elect who will represent the party in the August 3 local government elections.
Selection of some of the candidates was a subject of disputes over scores allocated by the party selection jury, but panel chairman Douglas Gibson said none of the about 30 appeals lodged were upheld.
“In two cases, scores were corrected because national office had erred in allocation of marks,” he said.
“Some aspirants were disappointed, some did not receive the nomination for the ward they wanted and others did not end up high on the list as they would have expected. But we have no killings in our party and nobody is being arrested for public violence,” explained Gibson.
Mashaba urged the team of councillors-elect to be servants of the city and serve the needs of the party’s constituents.
After only five months of campaigning, the businessman, who has been on the receiving end of criticism for lack of political experience, claimed he had been “enriched, and I have a sense that people of Joburg are ready for change”.
The Star