The Gauteng Human Settlements Department has called on Johannesburg Mayor Herman Mashaba to stop politicizing issues around the Alexandra Renewal project.
The African National Congress (ANC) controls the provincial government and the Democratic Alliance (DA) runs the city.
The project came under the spotlight in April this year during the #TotalShutdown campaign against the alleged misappropriation of funds.
It was meant to address housing and infrastructure-related challenges in Alexandra.
Mashaba had said in a statement that the shutdown was a politically-sponsored vehicle aimed at protecting the interest of those who benefited from the looting of the project.
The department’s spokesperson, Castro Ngobese, says Mashaba must instead address the service delivery problems in Alexandra.
“As a public representative, he’s got a responsibility to listen to the cries of the people of Alexandra and make sure that the city in its own plays its role in making sure that they bring services to the people of Alexandra. If you can go there to Alex today, the streets are stinking because rubbish is not being removed by the municipality, there’s water leakages everywhere, which is the municipality that must make sure that those things are fixed,” says Ngobese.
