Date: 17/04/2007

Source: Gauteng Provincial Government

Title: Mosunkutu: Launch of 2007 Bontle ke Botho Clean and Green Campaign

Keynote address of Gauteng MEC for Agriculture, Conservation and Environment, Khabisi Mosunkutu, at the launch of the 2007 Bontle ke Botho Clean and Green Campaign

17 April 2007

Programme Director
Leaders of political parties present
Executive Mayor of the host municipality: Councillor Dikeledi Tsotetsi
Executive Mayor of Sedibeng District Council: Councillor Mlungisi Hlongwane
Executive Mayor of the Midvaal Municipality: Councillor Martie Wenger
Members of Mayoral Committees and Councillors present
School principals and teachers present
Director: Stakeholder engagement: Mr Sipho Thanjekwayo
Government officials present
Members of ward committees and representative of various community organisations
Learners
Invited guests
Ladies and gentlemen

It is a pleasure to have this opportunity to be here with you today and to say a few words on the importance of what brings us here today and commend all participants of the Bontle ke Botho campaign.

This project will celebrate its fifth year of fruitful existence at a time when the essence of its being continues to be forcefully shoved into the forefront of global discussions. Mismanagement of the environment is wreaking havoc across the globe. Massive and agonising loss of life and property has brought to sharp relief what James Lovelock meant when he observed that 'Living matter on the earth collectively defines and regulates the material conditions necessary for the continuance of life.' This bitter understanding of how mismanagement of the environment, if not stopped can nastily define and regulate our lives, has been brought home. This interpretation was recently played out in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, when ferocious storms hit the beach. Previously it was Mozambique and some Southern American states before them.

These bitter lessons inform us that the environment can be humanity's most pitiless enemy. The critical role of Bontle ke Botho can be found in the midst of this devastation, it is but one intervention by our Provincial Government. It is, as we may know, aimed at contributing to effective and sustainable utilisation of energy and water. Its objective is also to contribute to effective control of the generation, storage, recycling and re-use of waste in a manner that contributes to our strategic objectives. In helping achieve these objectives, the project will be contributing to better management of our environment, managing the environment such that it becomes humanity's greatest friend instead of being an implacable opponent.

In its brief life, this Clean and Green project has indeed contributed towards fighting poverty, job creation and the building of sustainable communities. One project that embodies these objectives is the Vusisizwe Garden Project. In addition to maintaining the gardens at the O R Tambo International Airport, the project also manages eight mini waste depots in Ekurhuleni.

Through the project, water tanks have been provided to some needy schools within Gauteng and numerous other poverty and nutritional projects have been initiated.

As the project turns five years this year, we need to find more creative ways of contributing not only to its sustainability. We also need to find ways of ensuring that it attracts more participants from our communities and from the business sector. We must find ways of making a cleaner, greener environment more meaningful to more people in our communities.

As municipalities utilise the project to further enhance their Environmental Management Frameworks, locating these within their Integrated Development Plans, we collectively need to find and deploy more creative ways of ensuring that more and more members of our communities, especially those who are unemployed, find more practical reasons to align themselves and practically partake in the project whilst also being able to ward off poverty. We certainly can find ways of converting waste into meaningful livelihood.

In the course of this year, we shall launch an anti-litter campaign. We shall also launch a project aimed at keeping our rivers in a healthy state. I wish to encourage you all to support these projects with vim and vigour. They too will be contributing to a drive for ecosystem, social and economic development that will directly benefit all our citizens.

In conclusion, allow me to wish all the participants in the 2007 Bontle ke Botho project success.

I thank you.

Issued by: Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Environment, Gauteng Provincial Government
17 April 2007