MyJHB

Stuff from Johannesburg

Lesedi Municipality advertises for bidders for aerodrome project despite project being handed over to GIFA

Dear Johannesburg

The Democratic Alliance (DA) in Gauteng notes with concern, that despite the Heidelberg Aerodrome Project being handed over to the Gauteng Infrastructure Finance Agency (GIFA), the Lesedi Municipality has gone ahead and put out a tender for the project.

In an advertisement placed in the City Press Newspaper on 11 October 2020, the municipality put out a tender calling for proposals for the design, planning, development and management of the Aerodrome to the value of R80 million.

In a reply to written questions tabled in the Gauteng Provincial Legislature (GPL), the MEC for Finance and e-Government, Nomantu Nkomo-Ralehoko indicated that GIFA was not involved in the issuing of the tender and referred the question as to why this tender was issued back to the municipality.

It is concerning that the municipality has gone ahead and advertised for proposals for the Aerodrome when the process for the procurement for this project was legally handed over to GIFA through a resolution of Council.

It would appear that despite this being done, this government entity and the municipality does not know what the other is doing when it comes to this project.

Furthermore, no budget has been set aside for this project as a feasibility study must still be completed according to the MEC.

This parallel process of obtaining proposals for the development of the Aerodrome by the municipality is wrong and is a waste of taxpayers’ money, considering that another entity has been given the mandate to run the project.

In addition, the DA has always maintained that municipalities should not rely on GIFA to run their projects as this entity has a history of not completing projects on time. Projects like this should be run by the municipality.

However, we cannot have a situation where a project has been handed over to GIFA but is still being advertised by the municipality for possible bidders as this is a duplication of services.

I will be tabling further questions through the municipality to ascertain what informed this process, who has paid for the placement of the advert and why there is a parallel process being run.

Regards

Adriana Randall MPL
DA Gauteng Shadow MEC for Finance and e-Government

Category: Tag:

From Sophiatown to Triomf

By 1963, Sophiatown had been physically razed to the ground. In a final act of psychological warfare, the government built a white working-class suburb over the rubble and named it Triumph (Triomf). They wanted to erase the very memory of Sophiatown from the landscape. For decades, the name Sophiatown disappeared from maps, replaced by the neat, sterile streets of the victors.

The “resurrection” of Sophiatown began officially in 2006, when the City of Johannesburg formally restored the original name to the suburb. Today, the neighborhood is a quiet, leafy residential area, but the ghosts of the “Paris of the Transvaal” are everywhere. The Sophiatown Heritage Centre, housed in the former home of Dr. A.B. Xuma (a former ANC president), is one of the few original buildings that escaped the bulldozers. Walking through the streets today, you can still find small markers of the past: a lone Victorian pillar, a specific tree mentioned in a poem, or the rebuilt St. Joseph’s Church.

The legacy of Sophiatown is not just one of tragedy, but of an indestructible cultural spirit. The music, the slang (Tsotsitaal), and the “Drum” era aesthetic continue to influence South African fashion and film today. It serves as a reminder that while you can bulldoze a house and rename a street, you cannot kill the soul of a place that once danced to the sound of a thousand saxophones.