June 24, 2002
By Lucille Davie
ALEXANDRA township is to get a resource centre - one of the first legacies from the World Summit on Sustainable Development to be held in Johannesburg in August.
The Norwegian government has donated a multi-media resource centre to the Johannesburg World Summit Company (Jowsco) and after 4 September, when the Summit ends, this will be moved to Alexandra.
The resource centre has "the most technologically advanced hardware", and consists of 16 computers, a call centre for five operators, an audio-visual centre with two TVs, two video machines, and a screen and cameras, and a conference/education room. The centre takes the entire ground floor of the west wing of Jowsco's offices in Sandton, and is now available for researchers and journalists to utilise.
"We're proud and excited that after the Summit, the infrastructure from our resource centre will be transferred to Alexandra for various use by residents and students there. This effectively realises the legacy aspect of this most important event," said Moss Mashishi, CEO of Jowsco.
City Manager Pascal Moloi and World Summit chief Moss Mashishi at the opening of a multi-media resource centre at the summit's offices in Sandton on Friday. The centre was donated by the Norwegian Embassy at a cost ofR8-million, and is to be donated to Alexandra township after the summit ends in September.
The cost of the centre is R8-million and this must be seen, says Mashishi, as going towards the capital cost of the Alexandra Renewal Project, a joint private-public initiative to re-develop the 90-year old township, announced by President Thabo Mbeki in February last year. The estimated budget for the Project is R1,3-billion over a seven-year period.
"We're hoping that this gesture will stimulate meaningful economic activity, both directly and indirectly, in the township of Alexandra," adds Mashishi.
Alexandra, on the banks of the Jukskei River, is north-east of the city centre and covers an area of one square mile. The township, established in 1912, has a long history of poverty, forced removals and overcrowding.
Norwegian ambassador Jon Bech said at the handing over ceremony on Friday: "I wish Jowsco all the best in the running and use of the resource centre."
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