Pretoria - Executive Mayor Randall Williams rolled up his sleeves on Saturday to lead workers in a clean-up campaign in Mamelodi.
Williams, who was joined by members of his executive, said the clean-up was part of a mayoral campaign called Tswelopele. The initiative focused on encouraging volunteerism and instilling a sense of pride in communities.
Williams was in the area to relaunch the campaign and mobilise the community to rally behind it.
“This is about your responsibility as a citizen of Tshwane… I can’t just walk out and dump stuff everywhere. I have a responsibility to put it in bins, and our responsibility is to collect it every week on time.
“It is a partnership that we need to form… local government with the communities and businesses. That is what Tswelopele is about,” Williams said.
He said the City was looking at various problematic areas which were often littered with dirt.
“We want to clean up these areas and show residents what their area could look like if it was maintained this way,” he said.
The Tswelopele campaign relaunch coincided with the 5th anniversary of the Paris Agreement, which recognised the role of cities in combating climate change.
Williams said: “The City of Tshwane is commemorating this day through relaunching a campaign that aims to drive behavioural change towards a cleaner and greener capital city.
“As we move to finalising the City of Tshwane’s Paris Agreement compliant action plan with the generous support of C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, we strongly believe that active citizenry will ensure that we build a climate-resilient capital city.”
He said sustainable waste management featured strongly in the City’s strategic focus. “The City of Tshwane aims to act as a point of contact with communities who want to drive initiatives aimed at cleaning up their local areas. In doing so, the City will strive to support these initiatives with existing resources as far as possible.”
The campaign would be conducted on the second Saturday of each month in various locations across the seven regions.
Pretoria News