The Community liaison officers (CLOs) for the first two areas where construction of the Interim Basic Services will take place have been appointed.

The role of the CLO is to be a spokesperson for the contractor and to provide community members with opportunities to express their concerns and raise issues with the project team. This is to establish and maintain an effective relationship between the local community and the project developers.

The CLO for Emfuleni is Lulamile Mabhongo – 060 437 1348.  The elected CLO for Brandwacht is Roland van Rensburg – 078 768 3343.  They were elected as the most successful candidates in the respective areas.  Introductory meet and greet meetings were held on Wednesday morning at the site camp in Emfuleni as well as later in the day at the informal settlement at Brandwacht.  The purpose of these introductory meet and greet meetings were to explain the roles and responsibilities of stakeholders on the project and to eliminate any interference from such moving forward.  It was explained that all communication and community concerns should be channeled via the CLO to the Beneficiary Liaison Committee (BLC) and the project’s Stakeholder Engagement Coordinator, who will in turn raise any issues with the Engineer who will issue the contractor with instructions if required.  

The first point of call of the CLOs is to facilitate the sourcing of local labor to be employed by the contractor in the respective areas.  The photos below were taken at the meet and greet meeting this morning as well as during the sourcing of laborers.

The municipality is busy with a process to also appoint CLOs for the other areas that form part of the informal settlement upgrading project.