Johannesburg aims for safe festive season

2012-12-04 18:01

JMPD (Picture: Supplied)

Johannesburg - Measures to help ensure a safe festive season were unveiled by the City of Johannesburg on Tuesday morning.

"This year marks a new era, where we are working towards an incident-free festive season, and community involvement is critical in the realisation of this goal," the city said in a statement.

Johannesburg residents were encouraged to work with law enforcement agencies to reduce crime, accidents and by-law infringements.

"Our... [aim] is to create conscious communities who will work with the authorities to create liveable communities."

As such, the city would focus on traffic management, water safety, pedestrian safety, crime prevention and roadworthiness checks.

Given the increase in the use of fireworks around the holiday season, additional measures were in place to ensure people correctly used and stored them.

Johannesburg was also an important part of the national festive season safety campaign because much of its population had settled here from other provinces.

Therefore, it was the city's aim to inculcate a culture of responsible citizenry in residents, in the hope that they would replicate this wherever they went on holiday, to contribute to a safer country.

The city would also disseminate safety information on the dangers associated with water, in particular floods, flash floods and drowning.

Roadblocks would be intensified, and by-law enforcement would be stepped up.

"Disregard of by-laws such as illegal trading, urinating in public places, illegal dumping and littering will be tackled," the city said.

- SAPA