Community takes action to clean Burgers Park

Ms Africa 2024 recently led her third clean-up of Burgers Park in the CBD joined by several stakeholders, including Tshwane Mayor, Dr Nasiphi Moya.

The clean-up, led by McCayla Warriker on March 31, sought to tackle the park’s greenhouse and surrounding areas.

Partnering stakeholders included the Tshwane Leadership Foundation, Manhattan Hotel, Park Lodge, Burger’s Park Student Hotel, the Tshwane metro and Centre for Faith and Community.

Warriker said they conduct these clean-ups to attract more stakeholders interested in creating a more permanent solution to the decaying state of the park and its facilities.

“I’m excited that we’re finally in a space where there is room for collaboration and partnership. We did these clean-ups in an attempt to call on partners to come in, so we can bring everyone who has passion for the community and for the project together.

The word ‘burger’ itself translated from Afrikaans to English means resident, this is the residents’ park so, I’m excited about the community coming through and uplifting itself. This day was divinely put together as a meeting point, we knew that if we kept cleaning up this place at some point, it would work,” Warriker said.

She said she’s also excited to see the merging of different stakeholders coming together to form what she hopes to be an upward trajectory for the area that will inspire the city.

Tshwane Mayor said the clean-up was a shining example of the saying that “there is no government without people” and found it inspiring that residents came out to reclaim what is theirs.

“We have not been ignoring the complaints of this area, instead we’ve been across all regions connecting and engaging with residents because we want our residents to have a say in how they are governed by the government of Tshwane,” Moya said adding no service is more important than the others.

“Yes, we can focus on power outages and water-shedding but we can’t ignore services such as this park. MMC Ramabodu put it correctly, this park belongs to the people.

We don’t want kids who grow up caged because there isn’t enough space for them to play inside the flats.

We will restore Burger Park for them too.”

MMC for Environmental Agriculture, Obakeng Ramabodu said he was heartened by the sight of community members from Ward 80 coming together to clean up the park, adding that it was a testament to a collective commitment to ensuring a cleaner capital.

“This is a historical park that everyone knows, everyone who comes to the CBD knows this park.

It’s a park that is close to the hearts of ordinary people around the area and people who stay in different areas, they pass here towards the train station, toward the taxi rank,” Ramabodu said adding that the problems at the park include toilets and lights that aren’t working, and the fence has been stripped.

“What’s important is to ensure that our people can still come to this park.”

He said the department is working together with stakeholders and that they are taking the steps to give it the necessary attention.

He added that some changes will be communicated.

Next Monday, the stakeholders are meeting at Melrose Arch to discuss permanent solutions to improve the park.

Watch here:

We are here to make sure that Burgers Park is safe again. The park belongs to the people #EFFinGovernment pic.twitter.com/6DsiWkTUy9

— Obakeng COT MMC Environmental Agriculture . (@RamaboduObakeng) March 31, 2025

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