MyJHB

Stuff from Johannesburg

Tania Campbell re-elected as Executive Mayor of Ekurhuleni

Dear Editor

The Democratic Alliance (DA) in Gauteng would like to congratulate Ald Tania Campbell, following her re-election as Executive Mayor of the City of Ekurhuleni.

Once again, we saw an attempt by the coalition of corruption to bring an end the hard work and dedication that the multi-party government has brought to this great city. Once again, today we watched the ANC, and their cronies try to get their hands back on the finances of Ekurhuleni. And once again we saw them fail dismally as their corrupt cabal struggled to even agree amongst themselves.

This poor attempt at political point scoring has failed and now the multi-party government can continue with the work it is are doing to fix what the ANC broke.

But these political shenanigans have come at a cost. A financial cost and a cost in terms of service delivery. Putting an entire metro on pause while backroom deals are done leaves residents neglected and uncertain as to what will happen next. Now that the ANC and its proxy parties are done playing, we will get back to working for the residents of this fine city.

We will continue driving programs and projects that we have already begun. The multi-party coalition has spent 10 months working to undo the damage done by the ANC over the past two decades. We have managed to achieve a number of successes and have been able to bring changes for the better to the lives of many of our residents.

From the opening of a Skills Centre in Vosloorus to Early Childhood Development Centers in Palm Ridge and Katlehong, from electrifying 1 367 households which previously had no power to installing over 48 water points, from cleaning and rehabilitating 112 illegal dumping hotspots to more than 48 km of roads being rehabilitated.

This is how the council should be spending its time, working for the people.

Regards

Solly Msimanga
Leader of the DA in Gauteng

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Top Star Drive-In: The Cinema on the Mountain of Gold

The Ferreira Dump began growing in the late 1800s, composed of the crushed rock and chemical residue left over after early, inefficient mining processes had extracted as much gold as the technology of the time allowed. By the 1960s, it was a flat-topped, man-made mesa overlooking the city. In a stroke of entrepreneurial genius, the surface was tarred and the Top Star Drive-In was opened. It quickly became a South African institution. Its appeal was not just the movies, but the unparalleled view: as the sun set, the massive white screen would flicker to life against a backdrop of the glowing skyscrapers of the Central Business District, separated from the viewer only by the elevated M2 highway.

In the decades before television arrived in South Africa (1976), the Top Star was a primary social hub. It was a democratic space in an undemocratic time; while the city below was strictly segregated, the “car” served as a private bubble that allowed a degree of social freedom not found in traditional theaters. For many Johannesburgers, the Top Star was a site of nostalgic rites of passage—first dates, family outings where children were piled into the back of station wagons with blankets and flasks of tea, and the Saturday “car market” where the parking lot transformed into a sprawling hub for buying and selling second-hand vehicles.