In celebration of youth month, Johannesburg Mayor Dada Morero on Thursday launched the Joburg Bomb Squad (JBS), the City’s specialised unit that aims to tackle crime and enhance service delivery.

Morero was speaking during its launch in Soweto, where he said the unit - which is aligned to the work of the Presidential Support Package for the city - will fight lawlessness, unlock service delivery bottlenecks and accelerate delivery over the next two years.

The JBS will adopt a precinct approach throughout the city.

It will also be necessary for the JBS to develop appropriate interaction mechanisms with the City’s Service Delivery War Room, Morero said.

He pointed out that the work of the Bomb Squad would be led by former South African Broadcasting Corporation head Snuki Zikalala, with support from the Project Management Office through the leveraging of existing capacity in the City’s administration.

He explained that this work became operational on June 1.

He further highlighted that administrative support to the JBS would be provided through the offices of the COO.

Business intelligence gathering will be at the core of the work of the JBS, with meetings with relevant parties to isolate areas of potential land or building invasions, and to propose proactive intervention.

Rapid response teams will respond to service delivery failure hotspots and activate rapid interventions to address lawlessness in the city.

The JBS will execute a minimum programme of high-impact visibility, that includes a pothole programme, a grass cutting programme, and traffic light maintenance across the city.

Morero promised that the JBS would also eliminate illegal refuse dumps across communities, fix streetlights in townships and on the highways and address sewerage spillages in townships and informal settlements.

It will formalise informal settlements, he added.

“Development cannot thrive where there is lawlessness. Investment cannot take root where safety and order are absent. Dignity cannot be restored where public spaces are overrun by decay. It is only through implementation we will be able to see the Johannesburg we want to see. For us and the community of Kliptown this means deploying dedicated multidisciplinary enforcement teams to address land invasions, protect infrastructure, regulate informal trading, and ensure compliance with urban management standards,” he said.

He called on all sectors of society in Johannesburg to partner with the provincial government to make the squad effective, highlighting that the JBS would require financial resources.