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Mayor’s vision for Midvaal:
His vision for Midvaal, which
has a population of more than 100 000 is, "to ensure that
residents continue enjoying a good quality of life by
maintaining existing infrastructure, improving services in
underdeveloped areas and working towards a people-friendly
and efficient municipality that responds to citizen’s needs
in an affordable manner."
Shortly after his election as Mayor, Nast met with each of
the municipality’s 600 employees to explain the impact of
the recent economic recession and challenged the
administration to review its daily activities with a view to
"doing more with less". After more than a year of
cost-cutting at every level he believes that "Midvaal’s
employees took the challenge seriously and I am proud of
their efforts in improving the efficiency of our service
delivery".
During the 2009/2010 financial year Midvaal embarked on the
largest road maintenance and upgrading programme in its 10
year history. Special attention was also given to replacing
old sewerage pumps and increasing the efficiency of the
Meyerton Waste Water Treatment Works. The main electrical
substation was upgraded to double supply capacity and the
first phase of improving water reticulation along the R59
Industrial Corridor was also completed.
When mentioning libraries, the Mayor’s face lights up as he
explains their importance in the Midvaal area. "Our
libraries must be an inviting source of relevant
information, especially to our youth. All of Midvaal’s
libraries now offer free internet access to users and we
continue to invest large sums of money on new books as well
as regular publications such as newspapers and magazines."
The newly-completed and ultra-modern Sicelo Library is one
of Midvaal’s flagship projects and is an easily accessible
centre of excellence providing information in one of the
area’s previously disadvantaged communities.
Environmental protection also lies close to Timothy’s heart
and as a result he initiated the "adopt-a-tree" campaign
whereby residents could obtain trees from the municipality
to plant on their pavements on condition that they cared for
and watered the trees. "With this campaign we planted almost
4000 indigenous trees in Midvaal with the view of protecting
our natural environment for future generations".
Best quality of life in Gauteng:
It appears that the Mayor’s
efforts are bearing fruit as a recent study conducted by the
Gauteng Government placed the Midvaal area as the best in
terms of quality of life in the province. "Whilst we are all
very proud of these findings we cannot sit back for one
minute. There is still much work to be done in realising
this beautiful area’s untapped potential!"
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