18 April 2001
Your Worship Mayor Masondo
MEC Mashatile
Members of the community
Members of political parties
NGO's
The business community
Comrades and friends
Former President Nelson Mandela, reminiscing about Alex, wrote in his book Long Walk to Freedom:
"As one of the areas of the country where Africans could acquire freehold property and run their own affairs, where people did not have to kowtow to the tyranny of white municipal authorities, Alexandra was an urban Promised Land, evidence that a section of our people had broken their ties with rural areas and become permanent city-dwellers. The government, in order to keep Africans in the countryside or working in the mines, maintained that Africans were by nature a rural people, ill suited to city life. Alexandra, despite its problems and flaws, gave the lie to that argument. Its population was well adapted to city life and politically conscious."
He went on to say,
"Alexandra occupies a treasured place in my heart. It was the first place I ever lived away from home. Even though I was later to live in Orlando, a small section of Soweto, for a far longer period, I always regarded Alexandra Township as a home where I had no specific house, and Orlando as a place where I had a house but no home."
We are here today to take forward the process of radically transforming Alex from being a slum into a place where our people can live with dignity and pride. The renewal of Alex has meaning not only to the residents of Alex but to all of us, especially people who once lived there during the dark days of apartheid including the likes of Nelson Mandela.
Alex and its people have a rich history. This is a history it has carried from 1912 when the farm owned by George Papenfus was sold to blacks.
It soon became the proud home of intellectuals, musicians, politicians, poets, film stars and sportsmen and women of world acclaim. As with all places beset by poverty and unemployment, it also had its share of thugs and gangsters.
Famous films of world standards such as such as the "The Magic Garden", "Jim Comes to Jo'burg" and some parts of "Cry the Beloved Country" were shot in Alex with some of the actors coming from the area.
The first professional football body, the South African Soccer League, was formed in Alexandra.
Furthermore, the people of Alexandra played an important role in the struggle against apartheid. Even those of us who are still young know of the heroic bus boycotts of the late 50's, popularly known as "Azikhwelwa".
The three spheres of government working together with the community, business, and other organisations need to ensure the success of the project.
The project has a simple objective - to radically transform Alexandra and its surrounds, to make it a better place to live in with opportunities for employment and business.
Currently roads are in poor condition, streets are lined with litter everywhere, nearly every household has a backyard shack and in general formal housing has been run down. Those once magnificent houses with verandas seem to be overwhelmed by the tin shacks surrounding them.
As if this is not enough, we have people living inside the Jukskei River, in cemeteries, on roads, on pavements and in schoolyards. This we are determined to change and no amount of politicking will be allowed to obscure this sorry state of affairs or to impede progress.
As government we have a choice. It can either be business as usual. Or we can take radical measures to transform the place. Our view remains that maintaining the status quo is no option at all. In its early days, Alex was known as the "Dark City" because there was completely no electricity in the area.
We are committed to change it into a "City of Light". This will help not only to make it possible for children to grow under conditions of normality, it will also help us deal with unemployment, social crimes and poverty.
Through this initiative we must form a strong and vibrant community, create and enhance the local economy so that this can once again become the vibrant place we know it to have been.
Alexandra is very favourably situated with respect to the business and industrial areas of Wynberg, Kew, Sandton and Randburg and as such is an important model for us to implement our strategy of creating sustainable communities on appropriately located land. That means creating infrastructure closer to where people work and where there are schools, clinics and other facilities.
We must however not fool ourselves. This is a mammoth project. It has its critics. This is to be expected since it challenges some of the cornerstone of apartheid settlement patterns. It also challenges those who treat the law with contempt.
This does not only happen in Alexandra where people with vested interests have tried to stop development. In a an article in today's Citizen newspaper, a certain D Ras, who says he is the President of the Randburg Chamber of Commerce and Industry, says they are worried about the Cosmo city housing project since they believe it would add to the current problem of crime in the area. What is his message? Whites and the well off business do not engage in crime. Blacks who live in informal settlement and those with middle income who will stay at a mixed income housing project at Cosmo are criminals.
I have a message for Ras and his ilk. We will not be deterred. We have the will. We have the support of the people. Cosmo City and other development such as a revamped Alexandra will continue since to do otherwise would be to betray our election manifesto. I call on all political parties to condemn Ras and his ilk for fanning hatred and for equating poverty and blacks with criminals. Those whom he leads in the chamber should denounce him too.
I am not saying there are no criminals in these areas. There may well be. But I reject the notion that all those who live in informal settlements or in low cost housing are criminals. Let us continue to work together to ensure efficient and effective service delivery to all our residents including the Alexandra residents.
At a meeting of the Gauteng Inter-Governmental Forum held yesterday, all municipalities in Gauteng committed themselves to work tirelessly to improve the quality of life of all citizens. The commitment includes putting in place plans to provide a minimum amount of free basic services such as water and electricity, especially to poor households.
This does not in any way mean that people will not pay for water or electricity. It will simply allow us to ensure that poor and deserving families have water and electricity, while those who use more than the set minimum, will have to pay for any additional amounts they use.
As is already happening in Johannesburg, where the metro police department has been launched, other municipalities are looking at what plans they need to put in place in their respective areas to help combat crime.
Today as we speak here, there are demonstrations across our country in support of the government defence against the attack on its sovereignty to enact legislation favourable to its citizens. Let the record show that we are in court because the pharmaceutical companies want us to put profits before the lives of our people.
Regardless of the outcome of the case, we are committed to do everything to deal with the AIDS pandemic. As President Mbeki has often said, AIDS is not someone else's problem. It is everyone's problem. It affects all of us irrespective of position, age, race or class. Let us together join hands in spreading the gospel -Abstain, Be faithful and/or Condomise.
The organisers of the summit have prepared a charter which all of us are expected to sign committing us to work together to ensure the success of the Alexandra Renewal project. We call on all present to sign the charter. The Gauteng Provincial Government assures everyone that all positive contributions that will be made during commissions will be incorporated into the plan for the renewal of Alex.
The charter reads as follows:
We, the undersigned representatives and members of the community, civil society, non-governmental sector, private sector and government involved and living in Alexandra, commit ourselves to working together in the planning and implementation of the Alexandra Renewal Project, aimed at improving the living conditions as well as the human development potential within Alexandra by:
We further commit ourselves to supporting each other and working together in mutual recognition of all stakeholders' roles and views in a manner which:
of its constituent parts and its individuals
Issued by: The Office of the Premier
Gauteng Provincial Government
Enquiries: Thabo Masebe
082 410 8087