Tourism department partakes in cleaning Mahikeng
Hundreds of employees from The North West Provincial Government swapped their shirt and ties for overalls to clean the capital city, Mahikeng.
The cleaning campaign dubbed "Good Green Deeds" Campaign was launched last week on Friday following President Cyril Ramaphosa's announcement during the 2019 State of the Nation that the whole country will soon be engaged in a massive cleaning campaign aimed at solving the national and global environmental challenges.
All sectors of society are targeted to participate in this campaign (NGO, business, labour and society at large) for all of us to be environmentally conscious.
The "Good Green Deeds" campaign is aimed at promoting the Circular Waste Economy and changing behavior towards littering and illegal dumping. Coordinator of the campaign in the department Basil Jonkers said cleaning the capital city of the province will not only have a positive impact on the environment but will also help the city in attracting tourists.
"In the past, we've had tourists complaining about how dirty Mahikeng is. With this cleaning campaign we are hopeful that we will address those concerns. A clean Mahikeng would not be hospitable and welcoming to tourists but it'll even encourage a higher number of repeat visitors to the city because it has been proven that tourists tend to return to destinations that are clean" he said at the department's cleaning session outside the North West Development Corporation dumping site.
The employees from various departments were joined by the Community Works Programme (CWP) which had contracted 590 employees to work on cleaning municipalities throughout the province and each municipality received an allocated number of employees.
All the five Local Municipalities in Ngaka Modiri Molema were deployed in Mafikeng and were joined by 10 MECs, CEOs of state owned entities, five mayors from the Ngaka Modiri Molema District Municipality, taxi associations, labour, NGOs and the National Department of Environmental Affairs.
Jonkers said while the launch was slightly disturbed by the morning rain, he was happy with the turnout and the will showed by employees of the department to parts of the city. "Granted there were hiccups with heavy rains in town especially in the morning and this led to some delays especially the official launch. But as it gained momentum, we saw commitment from officials and I'm hopeful that soon the results will show." Officials from other departments were deployed to clean other parts of the city.
Enquiries
Dineo Lolokwane
Cell: 072 542 8444
Tel: 018 388 2081
E-mail: dlolokwane@nwpg.gov.za
