Neil Fraser
August 8, 2003
JOBURG'S Inner City has long enjoyed a love/hate relationship with the media. Certainly up to a few years ago the latter emotion predominated! The press wields enormous power and our argument, in the face of a decade of press negativity, was that they often wielded that power irresponsibly in relation to the city.
Whilst one cannot argue with the "rights of every citizens to know what is happening" there certainly seemed to be an unwritten agenda of portraying anything to do with the city in a particularly bad light. Even the most neutral of inner city news was often slanted due to crass headlines.
One of the reasons I started writing Citichat, probably some five years ago now, was to tell the good news about a city that the media constantly denigrated. On numerous occasions I had reporters phoning me and saying: "My editor wants me to do a story on the flight of business from the city - can you please give me the names of companies that have recently left the city!"
I even had one who wanted the addresses of buildings that had been vacated so that photographs could be taken of empty space, preferably shambolic due to the haste in which the occupants had fled the city! Then there was the photographer who "camped" in the Smal Street Mall for a week to obtain an horrific mugging picture.
Over the last thirty months, as the years of hard work in policy formulation, visioning and strategies moved into physical, visual proof of progress, the attitude of the media began to ameliorate somewhat. During the past twelve months media sentiment has turned very positive and this culminated in the first publication of Jozi News.
Moegsien Williams Editor of the Star and Saturday Star introduced the launch as follows: "We live in exciting times and Independent Newspapers are going to make these times even more exciting. We are launching a new weekly newspaper that will focus on the central city and the Greater Johannesburg area.
With the city undergoing dramatic changes and city conditions improving, we feel we can make some kind of contribution towards popularising the city centre and giving citizens a better sense of their self-worth. The city has recently seen the unveiling of the Nelson Mandela Bridge, a concerted results-oriented effort to clean up crime and a general refurbishment process.
Now add Jozi News to all these positive developments.
The free newspaper, Jozi News, will appear on the streets each Thursday - and will mainly be distributed at hubs of activity in and around Johannesburg. It will contain hard news, a focus on other parts of Africa, devote pages to lifestyle issues, offer advice, have a specific social/economic focus (the Aids pandememic will feature largely on the pages) and sports. Where people are being hard-done-by we will record their plight and where peoples' lives are being changed for the better these will equally be recorded. Most importantly, Jozi News is going to be unapologetic about its championing the cause of a regenerated Joburg."
So Jozi News is for me a real 'good news' initiative and will clearly help to change the perceptions that are so embedded in many peoples minds'. I may even be able to put down my pen one of these days or close my computer...however you say these things!
And the Metamorphosis?
Well, the metamorphosis relates to the Central Johannesburg Partnership as it goes through the fourth change since it was established.
CJP1: 1992 to 1995. The CJP was established in 1992 as a (Pty) Ltd company with a Board and Executive Committee made up of equal numbers drawn from Community, Business and the Council of the time. In 1995, the first democratic local authority elections made the tri-lateral structure of the organisation no longer essential. Now that legitimate local government was in place, it was felt that it would be more equitable for the various sectors to engage each other directly. (The Forum nature of CJP 1 was subsequently recreated through the Johannesburg Inner City Development Forum the forerunner to the present Inner City Section 79 Committee).
CJP2: 1996 to 1997. Community re-organised themselves as the Johannesburg Inner City Community Forum and the CJP changed from a (Pty) Ltd to a Section 21 (not for profit) company representing Business interests in the city. However during this time, the CJP became increasingly engaged in various broad initiatives including research and the establishment and management of CIDs, etc. By the end of 1996 it was felt that Business should have a more focused independent organisation to represent their interests whilst the CJP should be free to pursue a broader agenda than merely representing business interests. During this period the CJP also founded another organisation, Partnerships for Urban Renewal (PUR) to undertake similar work but geographically outside of the inner city.
CJP3: 1998 to 2002: The corporate financial support which the CJP had enjoyed was channelled into a new organisation, the Johannesburg Inner City Business Coalition (JICBC) and the CJP became a 'private non-profit company' earning its keep through a number of initiatives including the establishment and management of CIDS.
CJP4: 2003 and onwards: In the last year or so, two major concerns have concerned me, an eventual successor to myself coupled to the long term sustainability of the two companies and secondly, our lack of genuine black empowerment/representation. Ideally we needed to form a business relationship with an existing organisation that would help to address these issues. But a non-negotiable pre-requisite would be that such a partner would have to share our passion and mission - to be part of and a major contributor to the re-development of the city - plus a value system based on service excellence, integrity and trust. Recently we concluded an agreement with just such an organisation, the Kagiso Group. The Chairman, Eric Molobi, describes Kagiso as "a name rooted in our community and closely associated with the transformation of our country. It is a name that is synonymous with empowerment and is unrivalled in its reputation for business success and integrity. It is a name with a reputation for nurturing enterprise and for its belief in better business, for a better society. A name to trust."
A new company within the Group has been established which will be known as Kagiso Urban Management into which our PUR business will be progressively housed whilst the CJP will maintain its identity and continue in its Section 21 form.
On the one hand, by the very nature of its non-profit structure, the CJP does not change at all, other than at Board level, but on the other hand, it becomes 'nested' in a new corporate structure that can provide the support and resource that we lack.
I believe that we are now well structured to enable us to continue to play a meaningful role in the city's future.
CitiDiary - this past week
SAPOA statistics released for June 2003 reflect an improvement for the CBD in P, A, B & C grade space from 25.8% vacancies 9 months ago to 22.3% with Braamfontein stable at around the 12% mark
First week of the month is meetings week, Region 8, Section 79 Inner City Committee, JICBC et al - heavy going but nice to get them out of the way in one week!
Common Purpose graduated their first "Your Turn" group at the Market Theatre on Tuesday evening. "Your Turn" is a programme that takes Grade 9ers from local schools and exposes them to a wide range of policy and decision makers in the city thus providing a perspective on how the city works and how to become effective and active citizens for the future. Great evening with some really impressive young people, Common Purpose is doing a great job. Check it out on www.commonpurpose.org
