To some degree it should not be surprising that there is a backlog in infrastructure development projects for the majority of South Africans, according to Johannesburg Mayor, Parks Tau.
Addressing the Banking Association of SA summit in Sandton, Johannesburg, on 31st October 2014, Tau said cities in South Africa were designed to exclude and segregate, posing a challenge to town planning and bringing citizens closer to urban amenities. He explained that the City had to deal with the reality in the past 20 years.
Tau lamented: “In many ways, in the past 20 years, we might have inadvertently reinforced some of these inefficiencies in the urban system and we need to confront this reality in a slightly different way.”
He said the City of Johannesburg poor households committed a big portion of their resources to transport and food and this needed to be addressed. Further, the high proportion of Johannesburg’s population lived in rental accommodation – at around 41%.