The City of Tshwane has assured residents that basic services will continue to be rendered during the 21-day lockdown. The metro municipality has activated its Disaster Command Centre that will enable it to respond to residents and emergencies effectively. The city has been briefing the media in Pretoria.
As the country goes on lockdown in a bid to flatten the spread of COVID-19, the City of Tshwane says residents must not panic as most services rendered by the municipality will continue during the 21-day lockdown.
In the video below President Cyril Ramaphosa calls on South Africans to pray ahead of the national lockdown:
Services such as public swimming pools, libraries and resorts have already closed their doors to the public. The city says it will also be scaling down its bus services and at the Tshwane Food Market.
“Just about all municipal services are essential services, obvious there are a few that will not be operational such as libraries as a result. But our call centres to receive reports from communities, our water services our electricity supply, our road management traffic lights and alike will all be operating, not at a full scale but at a skeleton level. We will bring in people as and when needed. So our staff has been encouraged to make themselves available,” says City Manager Mavela Dlamini.
The city has also put a plan in place to deal with the possibility of the acceleration of the virus in informal settlements. The municipality says there are more than 200 informal settlements in Tshwane.
Dlamini says there is an evacuation plan for those who might contract the virus and would have to self-isolate.
“If there’s a sense that we are still picking up infections and they are caused because of the high density of people there, then those people will then be tended to these areas that we are saying are strategic reserves for us to manage social distancing in an appropriate manner.”
Areas without water have also been identified. Water tankers will be dispatched at all these places to ensure that all residents have access to water.
“There will be water tanks where there is no water reticulation system. There will be Jojo tanks that will be placed. We will make sure that there is no citizen that does not have water to even wash their hands as we requested,” says the City’s Head of Emergency Services, Moshema Mosia.
The graphic below gives more information about the lockdown:
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