By Mzukona Mantshontsho
“We demand a fully-fledged Police Station in Cosmo City”. These were the sentiments of residents from Cosmo City because of the high levels of crime, rape and murders.
The Mobile Police Station in extension 8 does not cut it anymore given the between 300,000 and 400,000 population in the area. The residents took a memorandum of demands to the Member of the Executive Committee in Gauteng Department of Community and Safety division in Johannesburg.
The Memorandum:
We demand a fully-fledged Police Station,
We demand Police Visibility in the area,
We demand more police personnel in the area,
We demand the dignity of the South African Police Service to be restored,
We demand a stronger fight against alcohol and substance and abuse,
We demand a stronger stance against illegal firearms.
The Cosmo City Development is the first public private partnership worth R3.5billion between the City of Johannesburg, Basil Read, Codevco as well as the community. Cosmo City emerged out of an urgent need to provide accommodation for the informal settlers of Zeverfontein and Riverbend who had been illegally occupying privately owned land 25 kilometres North West of the Johannesburg Central Business District.
The Population of Cosmo City
In an interview with former Managing Director at Basil Read Developers, Brian Mulhorren, he confirmed that Cosmo City had 11 562 families – this is excluding the backrooms that have mushroomed. This number comes from 4944 RDP houses, 3400 bonded houses, 281 rental-apartments and 2937 semi-financed houses. There is a plan to have 20 bonded sites in extension 0, 150 bonded houses in extension 5, much like the Sonwabo Development. There is a potential of another 170 bonded houses in extension 8 and around 189 Uptown houses in extension 2 and 4.
In the absence of Member of the Executive Committee (MEC), Chief of Staff at the department Kgomotso Mokgopo accepted the memorandum.
