The 18th of July has become a special day in South Africa and the world. It is a day on which we promote human rights and all that is good about humanity.
We will on the 18th of July this year join the world again in celebrating the legacy of former President Nelson Mandela. This year, we have decided to honour Madiba’s memory through a massive Operation Clean Up for Madiba campaign.
We should demonstrate our love for our beautiful country by cleaning our surroundings, together. In this way, we will be promoting working together to build our beautiful country, which is what Madiba taught us as South Africans. Secondly, we will also be demonstrating our collective commitment to a cleaner, safer and healthier environment and communities.
Beyond community responsibility, we also urge both the public and private sectors to seriously reflect on how they dispose of waste. We urge municipalities as well to use this campaign to discuss further improving refuse removal services in under-serviced communities.
We call upon learners in particular, as our future, to make their schools clean learning environments, without paper or garbage strewn around, so that they can build a proud nation that is comfortable in its surroundings in future.
The Operation Clean Up for Madiba campaign will build on existing environmental programmes such as the Expanded Public Works Programme initiatives such as Working on Waste, Wetlands, Water, Fire and the Environmental Youth Services Programme which have created 744 589 work opportunities and 205 005 full time equivalent jobs since 2009. More than half of these beneficiaries were youth.
It is also part of promoting the country’s growing green economy. For example, last year, we announced the National Green Fund with an R800-million allocation to support and catalyse investment in the green and lower carbon economy. This fund is now completely oversubscribed with applications to the tune of some R10-billion and has already approved investment of over R400-million in job creating green economy projects with municipalities, other organs of state, community organisations and the private sector. We should continue to support these greening and keeping South Africa beautiful campaigns.
I will play my part by participating in an Operation Clean Up activity at the Nelson Mandela School of Science and Technology in Mvezo in the Eastern Cape and other activities there before opening the Mvezo Komkhulu Museum.
Together let us make South Africa a better and cleaner place to live in each day.
Enquiries:
Mac Maharaj
Cell: 079 879 3203
E-mail: macmaharaj@icloud.com
