As a member of the mayoral committee, Ros Greeff is in charge of service delivery. That means she is at the coalface of power outages, sewer leaks and water disruptions.

Ros Greeff, mayoral committee member for infrastructure and services

ROS GREEFF has a "life and death" portfolio – she is responsible for the delivery of infrastructure and services to over three million people, and that's serious, mind-focusing stuff.

"A city of residents depends on what I can deliver," says the mayoral committee member.

She gives an example of how serious it is: if you're a mother with a young baby in an informal settlement, you need to have easy access to water. And as a mother of four herself, Greeff can easily identify with this.

"I will carry out the mayor's mandate – to aim to have excellence in service delivery across the city."

Greeff says the biggest challenge of her life and death portfolio is to remain "focused on strategy and not get too involved in operational issues".

She oversees the delivery of water and sanitation through Johannesburg Water, the delivery of electricity through City Power and the collection of waste through Pikitup. That means those power outages, illegal dumping and sewer leaks that hit the city periodically, are her challenges.

And she has tackled these challenges head-on. Her first priority after taking office nine months ago, Greeff says, was to analyse where the city was and to identify any backlogs. "We have a very good sense of the situation," she confirms, "and have developed concrete business plans. Everybody works on a scorecard basis. We have been given very generous budgets. We are certainly optimistic about the progress we are making."

For City Power, this financial year some R125-million has been invested in infrastructure, which is outdated and lacking in regular maintenance. Some R33-million has been budgeted for Johannesburg Water, to deal with current backlogs and to be used to "more aggressively update and maintain" infrastructure.

With an emphasis on the inner city, about R3-million has been budgeted to Pikitup for waste collection in this area, Greeff says. The roll-out of bins in the CBD has also begun. "We aim to reduce littering and illegal dumping through educational programmes and law enforcement."

Greeff feels confident about Joburg's progress. "I am confident that the performance of the utilities is improving. They are trying very hard to deliver and move to the implementation of our plans."

There are big developments in the pipeline for waste disposal, Greeff says, adding that she is exploring sustainable new technologies for cleaning inner city streets. These involve a compactor that vacuums and sweeps a street in a very short time. Another option is large, underground bins that take five to six minutes to empty. Five of these bins are being tested in a pilot study.

"We need to find sustainable solutions," she says. "We're moving in the right direction but the population keeps growing."

Another issue is finding alternatives to landfill disposal, or moving to zero waste through aggressive recycling and green waste plants. These also involve turning garden refuse into compost that can be sold.

Greeff says she is looking into "some successful new technologies", like gas extraction from landfills. This gas can then be sold or exchanged for carbon credits, or perhaps even piped to Egoli Gas for distribution to its users.

She has visited landfill sites as part of her initial analysis and has had to learn to steel herself against her innate squeamishness.

She has learned other things too. "I am known to be over-enthusiastic about things and have learned to be more patient with people. I have to take a long-term view of issues, to think through decisions – it's been a developmental process."

And this discipline has stood her in good stead, especially when she gets calls from unhappy customers, at home, at all hours. "I am very unemotional and calm dealing with customers, and not afraid to speak to them."

Greeff considers the qualities of a good politician to be "leadership, interpersonal skills and commitment to the political cause", and for her the cause has been uppermost. "I was always interested in politics - my family was political."

She studied dramatic art in Pretoria and became active in politics in the 1980s, eventually joining the End Conscription Campaign, the body working to end conscription into the military forces, in defiance against the apartheid army.

After completing her studies, Greeff ran a successful children's theatre company. But politics was a greater calling – she was a founder member of the Roodepoort ANC branch in 1994 and in 1999 she was elected to the Committee of 15, the body driving the transformation of the Joburg council. In 2002 she was elected secretary of the ANC Zone 5 structures and at present she is an ANC Rolihlahla branch member.

Over the years Greeff has held a number of party positions, from secretary to chairperson. She was appointed to the executive committee in the Western Metropolitan Local Council from 1994 to 2000. "I have been sent on courses by the ANC, and have been given many study opportunities."

She has studied local government management in London, learning about infrastructure development and services, unicities and transformation. Back home she studied human resources management, communication and local government.

But politics is not Greeff's only passion – she has been involved in community work in Roodepoort, where she lives, and for eight years served on the board of the Pro Musica Theatre. Other projects are the Roodepoort Child and Family Welfare Society and the Sparrow Rainbow Village for HIV and Aids-positive people.

Like other female members of the mayoral committee, Greeff expresses surprise at her appointment to the inner mayoral circle. "I am very committed; I put a lot of effort into what I do," she explains, saying that at the time of the appointment she was, among other things, deputy chairperson of development planning for Cosmo City, a huge, R1,5-billion integrated housing development north of Honeydew.

"The mayor may have noticed," Greeff says modestly; she sees the mayor as the perfect role model.

She says she is motivated "by a passion" – the need to "serve the community". That goes as far as an occasional urge to pick up a broom and sweep the streets.

When asked what the secret of high achieving women is, Greeff answers: "It's to do with your background. I had a very stimulating background and lots of support. When I was growing up I was told that I was special and would achieve something."

Of course, as every high-achieving man knows, it also helps to have a supportive partner. Greeff's husband, who has his own legal practice, fetches the children from school every afternoon and cooks their supper most nights.

This allows her to stay focused on her job, which often demands that she stays at work until 10pm. "He supports me 100 percent. I am so lucky to have this opportunity, only single women or those with this support could do what I am doing."