Are you unemployed and willing to help clean the streets and cut grass in Johannesburg?

The City of Johannesburg is looking for you as part of a new initiative to employ up to 1,400 people to improve basic services.

This was announced by Johannesburg finance MMC Funzela Ngobeni yesterday when he tabled the city's budget for the 2019/2020 financial year.

Ngobeni said R100m has been set aside for the recruitment of a "visible service delivery workforce".

The workers will augment current services deployed across the city's seven regions to perform functions such as grass cutting, street sweeping, storm water desilting, litter picking and related functions.

"The city is growing. We are getting about 3,000 [people] migrating into the city on a monthly basis. We believe that if we can be able to get this workforce on the ground [it will make a difference]. The idea is to get at least 10 of them per ward in the city. They will work at identified spots where service delivery is dragging."

Ngobeni said job seekers would be invited to register their names and qualifications in the city's database.

"We will tap into that database. We don't want politicians or ward councilors to be the ones inviting people to come and work. It must be a transparent process. We are saying that these people are permanent. The job of cleaning is not one that is today and tomorrow is gone," he said.

In the current financial year, the city plans to employ between 1,000 and 1,400 people.

Ngobeni tabled a budget of R64.5bn of which R56.7bn is operating budget and R7.8bn will be spent on capital projects.

The housing department received R3.5bn which will go towards bulk infrastructure for human settlement developments in Diepsloot, Fleurhof, Lufhereng, Vlakfontein, Kliptown and South Hills.

The city will also refurbish Meadowlands hostel at a cost of R50m, Diepkloof hostel at R85m, and 22 old age homes at a cost of R100m.

Johannesburg Water received an operating budget of R11.5bn and a capital budget of R3.2bn for the upgrade of construction of reservoirs, maintenance of infrastructure, demand management and renewal of bulk waste treatment plants.

When asked about the budget for Alexandra township which has been having protests on services, Ngobeni said the city would allow the process initiated by President Cyril Ramaphosa to address problems there to unfold.

The city allocated R50m to Madala Hostel in Alexandra to ensure that it is "livable".