KEEPING the City Centre in tip-top shape is no easy feat, but in the past 10 years they have cleaned storm water drains 34 860 times, painted 5 200 road markings and done over 9 300 road maintenance repairs. And that’s just the beginning.
These impressive achievements are those of the Cape Town Central City’s Straatwerk Road Maintenance Team, which is celebrating 10 remarkable years of hard work to ensure the CBD is a clean, attractive and risk-free urban environment.
Celebrating the success of this unit at a special function at the CCID’s depot in the Company’s Garden today, CCID CEO Tasso Evangelinos said the team, which is made up of individuals from the CCID’s partner NGO Straatwerk, was “a success story of which we are very proud”.
“It speaks to the art of collaboration, something that is at the heart of the CCID’s founding principles as a public-private partnership,” Evangelinos said.
The team falls under the auspices of the CCID’s Urban Management department and it attends to issues such as repairs to damaged pavement surfaces, minor potholes, paving, damaged signage, replacing missing drain covers, cleaning channels and storm water outlets and road-marking painting across the CBD.
When the team was formed in 2009, its members received extensive training from the City of Cape Town’s Roads Department. Today, they are still supported by the City, from which the unit receives its supplies.
Urban Management manager Richard Beesley praised the team’s achievements over the years, and said it was special because it is made up previously disadvantaged individuals who are now upskilled to such an extent that they can ply their trade anywhere.
Said Beesley: “Over the years, it has made its mark, and we are incredibly proud of the work the team does, often under difficult circumstances: They learn something new every day and have mastered coping with a dynamic CBD.”
What is also special is that two of the team members, namely Operations Supervisor Obey Togarepi and Foreman Reward Vaki have been with the unit since its inception 10 years ago.
The idea of a small, dedicated maintenance team was born when Evangelinos and Beesley became concerned about the general response times to minor issues like paving defects by the City’s Roads Department. The City was able to address major issues like missing drain covers but, due to limited resources and budget constraints, months would pass before minor defects were seen to, confirmed Johan de Beer, former Chief Engineer of the City of Cape Town.
De Beer said the CCID proposed to fund a team, trained by the City, to work on the streets of the CBD and this came into effect in 2009. He praised the unit for “halting decay” in the city centre in the past 10 years and said the team had had a “significant impact on the CBD”.
The team, who all received a gift voucher, certificate and medal at the function, is made up of the following members: Obey Togarepi (Operations Supervisor), Reward Vaki and Gaylord Mabaya (foremen), Zakhele Mlata, Norman Letsatsi, Peter Mooketsi and Christopher Gabaathlole.
STATISTICAL HIGHLIGHTS OF THE STRAATWERK ROAD MAINTENANCE TEAM
During the past 10 years, the team achieved the following:
34 860 Number of times storm water drains were cleaned
242 Tons of waste removed from storm water and municipal drains
9 335 Road maintenance repairs undertaken
5 200 Road markings painted
1 800 Drain covers replaced
350 Bbollards installed
Issued by Sharon Sorour-Morris, Communications Manager, CCID. For more information or interviews:
Tel: 021 286 0830
Cell: 082 216 0835
Email: sharon@capetownccid.org