The Buffalo City Metro is set to recruit 100 young ex-convicts and recovering addicts to safeguard municipal property and infrastructure.
This was announced by executive mayor Princess Faku this week, when the city signed a memorandum of understanding with the National Youth Development Agency, which will use some of BCM’s properties for the benefit of young people.
The initiative, set to start in August, will involve ex-convicts and troubled young adults aged between 18 and 35, who will be tasked with guarding municipal property.
Each of the city’s 50 wards will have two guards, who will be paid a stipend of R3,000 a month.
Faku said the initiative was aimed at showing young people there was still a future for those who were willing to change their ways.
“One just needs to have hope and faith. With the National Youth Development Agency on board, I want them [ex-offenders] to change their old ways and work hard to look after the city’s infrastructure and properties.”
She said care would be taken to ensure the suitability of the ex-convicts selected to participate in the programme.
“Of course we cannot take a rapist and tell him to go and look after a property with children and women.
“We will look at the profiles of the people, working together with [ward] councillors,” Faku said.
In recent months, vandals and thieves have increasingly targeted municipal property and infrastructure in the metro.
Last week, the metro demolished an abandoned municipal building in Gonubie which had been housing a “den of criminals and drug addicts”.
One just needs to have hope and faith. With the National Youth Development Agency on board, I want them [ex-offenders] to change their old ways and work hard to look after the city’s infrastructure and properties
Several suburbs in East London experienced a power outage of about 40 hours in late May after large-scale vandalism of the metro’s Queenspark substation.
“We are coming up with strategies to safeguard our infrastructure,” Faku said.
“The people who are vandalising our infrastructure and properties are young people who have nothing to do after they have been in conflict with the law.
“No-one wants to employ people who have been in conflict with the law and now everyone has given up on them.
“I have been going around requesting government entities to help me employ them.”
The mayor said each of the city’s 50 ward councillors would be asked to submit the names of two recruits to her office.
“Councillors know better about the problematic areas in their ward and they will help identify those areas so that these young people can look after those properties.
“We are going to make sure that these young people set examples to their own communities.
“I am a firm believer in giving people a second chance, especially those who have served their sentences.
“The correctional service department takes these people to us after they have served their sentences.”
National Youth Development Agency CEO Waseem Carrim said youth unemployment in the country had reached crisis levels.
“I appreciate the efforts of the Buffalo City Metro in allowing us to work with them. A huge amount of work lies ahead of us in this metro.
“We continue to work with the national government because there is no way we can address the crisis of youth unemployment without partners.”
Carrim said he was grateful for the metro’s initiative.
“When we work together we have a better chance of being able to assist our young people.
“We are excited about the partnership we have formed with the metro.
“We understand the challenge facing young people who are in conflict with the law or who may have made mistakes in their previous lives.
We want to assist them in transitioning back to society so that they can be active and responsible citizens of the country
“We want to assist them in transitioning back to society so that they can be active and responsible citizens of the country.”
It was important that young people were equipped with skills to contribute to the economy.
“There are a lot of people who say that we should give up on trying to create employment.
“Do we want a generation of young people who stand in the queue at the post office for a R350 [Social Relief of Distress] grant, or a society of young people who wake in the morning and feel they are valuable and contributors to society?”
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