June 26, 2007
By Lucille Davie
PREMA NAIDOO'S family has been involved in politics for the past century, and he can't imagine doing anything else.
"It's the only life I know," says the mayoral committee member for the environment. "My parents took me to political meetings and demonstrations as a kid. I was arrested at the age of 14."
His grandfather, who immigrated to South Africa from Mauritius at the age of 14, was a founding member of the Transvaal Indian Congress. He was a colleague of Mahatma Gandhi, and together they organised campaigns protesting against unfair treatment by the government around the turn of the century, according to Naidoo's brother, Indres, in his testimony to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in 1997.
His grandfather has a "proud record" of going to prison 14 times, while his grandmother was also detained, and even gave birth in prison.
Naidoo has spent time in prison, as has his father and mother. His son was arrested while in matric and spent two weeks in prison. "He wrote one of his matric papers while in prison," says his father.
Torture
Naidoo spent three months in solitary confinement in the early 1980s and was tortured. "I was interrogated for seven days and seven nights continuously," he recounts, describing it as "a difficult period of my life".
But he doesn't want revenge. He says he has followed the examples of Nelson Mandela and Oliver Tambo. "Nelson Mandela taught us not to be bitter. They were outstanding leaders who wanted a dignified struggle – they never condoned punishment." He admits, though, that mistakes were made.
He served 12 months at the Fort for helping anti-apartheid activist Stephen Lee escape the country. As a result of the torture he suffered at the time, he lost 75 percent of his hearing and now uses hearing aids.
How has it affected who he is today? "I am a better, more caring human being. I want to build a society where those kinds of things never happen."
Biggest challenge
Naidoo says global warming is his department's biggest challenge and, with that, making communities aware of the issue. This involves talking to schools, community organisations and ward councillors about litter, reducing energy use and caring for water.
"We need to get people to understand the importance of the environment," he says.
At the Large Cities Summit on Climate Change in New York in mid-May, Executive Mayor Amos Masondo highlighted that Joburg was committed to dealing with the effects of climate change. He commented on how treed the city was, with 10 million trees and a goal of planting a further 100 000 trees by 2011 – over-and-above the 20 000 that had been planted in the past few years.
Other initiatives are the creation of a dedicated climate change programme within the environmental planning and management department, with dedicated capacity.
This department has five key goals. Its catchment management strategy is primarily concerned with preventing flooding and its damage, and preventing pollution of water resources while maintaining aquatic ecosystems. Secondly, its integrated waste management plan aims to minimise waste and encourage responsible behaviour concerning waste.
Thirdly, its air quality management plan focuses on identifying the sources of air pollution while putting in place strategies to reduce pollution. Fourthly, the major thrust of the metropolitan open space system is to manage open space within the city.
And lastly, the department's cleaner production implementation plan concentrates on the continuous application of integrated and preventative environmental interventions, to reduce the environmental risk to human health and the environment.
Naidoo is starting at home base with a couple of interventions: making the council's five buildings more eco-friendly by changing light globes to more efficient ones, and by ensuring, where necessary, that natural light is used optimally.
Other projects involve solar street lighting in Zandspruit and solar geysers in Cosmo City.
Water and air projects
The City has a Surface Water Quality Monitoring Programme, which aims to identify water quality problems, as well as provide information to improve and protect the City's water resources.
Monitoring helps assess the effectiveness of water treatment facilities; assists in determining the bacteriological health of river ecosystems; gives early warning of hotspots; assists in tracking pollution to its original source; and documents long-term trends and changes in water quality.
Joburg tests its rivers regularly to ensure that the water quality complies with world standards. Water in the two main rivers, the Klip in the south and the Jukskei in the north, is regularly tested.
The City's R450-million Operation Gcin'amanzi has saved some 33 billion litres of water through the replacement of leaking water pipes and ageing infrastructure in Soweto. About 54 000 households have received prepaid water meters and so far R95-million has been saved on water losses.
And the Klipspruit - Klip River Greening Project, a 2010 Fifa World Cup™ legacy project, was launched on International World Environment Day, on 5 June.
The polluted Klip River runs south of the city, through Soweto. Some R3-million has been set aside for testing and finding the source of that pollution. "We plan to have it clean by 2010, then hand it over to City Parks for monitoring," Naidoo confirms.
Air quality
Joburg has six air quality stations – at Alexandra, Buccleuch, Delta Park, Jabavu, Newtown and Orange Farm, which measure everything from traffic emissions to domestic coal fires.
Heating by means of an imbawula or brazier is also a problem, and Naidoo hopes to change the way people use these fires. Instead of putting paper at the bottom and wood and coal above it – which generates a lot of smoke – Naidoo wants to teach people a new method: reversing the order of the items cuts the resultant pollution by 40 percent.
"We want to create an awareness – our actions are harming the environment," he says.
Naidoo is also concerned about pollution at landfill sites. "The methane gas emitted from the sites is bad for global warming through the greenhouse effect. Up to 80 percent can be recycled. At present people collect recyclable items from the garbage at the sites – this is not an ideal situation."
In an effort to reduce waste taken to landfill sites, a pilot project using separate bins for items like paper and bottles is to begin in Lonehill soon. In other communities there are buyback centres where people are paid for bringing in specific waste.
New developments
Developments that have happened since he took office include the creation of a number of new parks around the city – Mapetla, Cosmo City, Rose Avenue in Lenasia, a park in Finetown, and the redevelopment of the Yeoville and Troyeville parks.
The Troyeville park is to be renamed the David Webster Park, in memory of the academic's assassination on the doorstep of his house in the suburb.
In addition, the upgrade of the Johannesburg Zoo is continuing. "We are moving away from the concept of caged animals," Naidoo explains.
Expected to take five years to complete, the new-look zoo will include seven new, themed zones - Spice Route, Heart of Africa, Southern Safari, Extreme Environments, Amazonia, a farmyard and an entertainment area.
So far the Ape House and the Forest Floor, part of the Heart of Africa zone, and the Carnivore Curve complex, part of the Southern Safari zone, have been completed. A wooden walkway over four enclosures has also been built.
In the past year two new cemeteries have been opened – Waterval and Diepsloot. In April Diepsloot Cemetery opened, with a memorial park, where visitors can sit on circular benches in landscaped gardens with dramatic stone pillars, signifying a link with the past when bodies were buried beneath circular cattle byres.
Waste removal
The City has 500 waste service providers, and Naidoo's department is busy licensing every one of them. Some are guilty of illegal dumping, and new, high-tech equipment will enable his department to monitor their movements, to try and establish who the culprits are.
So far 200 providers have been licensed; by the end of June all should be registered.
When he's not opening cemeteries, encouraging people not to litter or monitoring the city's rivers, Naidoo likes watching sport, particularly soccer and cricket, or going to the movies and the theatre.
He was born in Joburg and has lived his whole life in the city. "I love Joburg's vibrancy and its cosmopolitan nature," he says.
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