By Anish Abraham

Reducing the structure of the City, from 11 regions to just seven, will help to improve urban management and service delivery.

Restructuring the City will help to bring services closer to the people in a more efficient manner. Previously divided into 11 regions, Joburg now has just seven regions.

The changes "enable the City to focus more on the issues of urban management and better collaboration with local business and community organisations, while ensuring effective service delivery and efficient utilisation of resources".

So said Executive Mayor Amos Masondo at a briefing at his parlour on 18 October, where he spoke about the restructuring of the City's regions in an effort to ensure residents have clarity on the changes.

He outlined the changes to the structuring of the City's regions and the wards within each region. Under the new structure, regional directors of the seven areas would report to the executive director of development planning and urban management.

These regional directors would be responsible for urban management, service delivery co-ordination and development planning duties. In effect, they would have to ensure the quality of the urban environment in their regions was maintained and exercise an oversight role over functions provided by municipal-owned entities, such as electricity, water, roads, sanitation and waste management.

"This is helping to bring services closer to the people," Masondo said. "We want to ensure that citizens are able to access the basic services as close as possible to where they live."

Following local government elections in March, the City decided to cut the number of its administrative regions from 11 to seven. "Since the local government elections, the City has recommitted itself to the vision to build Johannesburg into a world-class African city."

To help achieve that goal, Joburg had held its first ever Growth and Development Summit, at Nasrec on 12 May, from which grew the City's Growth and Development Strategy.

This document, he said, outlined Joburg's vision: "In future, Johannesburg will continue to lead as South Africa's primary business city, a dynamic centre of production, innovation, trade, finance and services. This will be a city of opportunity, where the benefits of balanced economic growth will be shared in a way that enables all residents to gain access to the ladder of prosperity…"

The City also held intensive consultations to develop its first ever five-year Integrated Development Plan.

"Through these strategy documents, we are seeking to address the challenges of urbanisation and migration, economic development and job creation, service delivery, poverty, urban renewal and regeneration, globalisation, information technology and others," Masondo explained.

Source: Johannesburg News Agency