By Jonk wa Mashamba
news@alexreporter.co.za
The Alex parliament is not only interested in helping the national government, but it is on different missions.
One of the missions is to make sure that the officials who visit Alex, return to their destinations safely and with a positive experience about the infamous township.
Recently, when Johannesburg Road Agency (JRA) staff went to London Road to work on their mission, Alex Parliament made sure no thugs came near them.
” One of the challenges these guys were talking about was that there are members of the community who, anytime JRA, try to fix the road, they get robbed.
“We are working sure that they are protected. We will make sure that these guys are safe guarded,” Alex Parliament president, Vincent Ndima.
Alex Parliament is also determined to offer advice to the government on how certain challenges can be tackled.
Ndima stated that his office would make every effort to exercise the powers as enshrined in the Constitution. ” People shall govern,” he said.
He said his parliament, established in 2018, had aimed to address social ills.
“Social development currently is our top priority. In terms of social development, we are referring to enhancing not only the standard of living of our fellow masses, but we aim to mentally and emotionally train our people to be able to make means of utilizing available resources to better the general structure of the community of Alexandra.
“Our objective is to make sure that service delivery and other basic needs that are meant to suppress poverty and stimulate growth within townships, are given to our residents without failure.
“We will ensure that solutions offered by government are executed with extreme precision.
“However, this does not mean that the parliament awaits approval from government to liberate our people. We are a self driven organisation that believes in this saying ‘for the people, to the people, by the people’.”
“As we all know that our people have been previously disadvantaged, where applicable, the parliament offers advice to government on how certain challenges can be tackled.”
He gave an example of the infamous July unrest.
“During that time, the SAPS could not secure all the major service supplying infrastructures, but the parliament had to intervene and offer alternative solutions on how to at least protect Alex Mall, as Pan Africa Mall had already fallen victim to the unrest.
“One of the examples I can give of current strategies implemented by the parliament, is the introduction of township Olympics where sporting activities are reintroduced to our young people, as means of fighting the addiction of drugs and alcohol abuse by our youth.”
He stressed that they will actively monitor all learning institutions in Alex, to ensure that learners were safe. He said his parliament had been engaging with the department of education to ensure that structures such as SGBs should be held accountable in as far as teaching and learning is executed without interruption.
“Safety and discipline are adhered to by both learners and teachers. As a result of that engagement, the parliament was able to liberate not only learners of Alexandra high schools with the moral of discipline, but the remark was stretched to as far as ensuring that the department fully understands that there will never be a time where people of Alexandra wait for intervention from government.
“Alexandra Parliament is there to push through those bearers because it is a people’s motivated pressure group.
“With regards to combating crime, the parliament has been working hand in hand with an entity that is currently developing an app that will enable to fast track many EMS protocols. Such as reaching police services without being redirected from one line to another, but actually contacting the direct station one resides near to.”