GOOD Speech by Siyabulela Mamkeli,
GOOD City of Cape Town Councillor
31 March 2026
*Note to Editor: This speech was given today at the City of Cape Town Council Meeting
Speaker, through you, what we have before us today is not just a procedural overlap; it is a governance failure.
The exact same National Treasury comments, word for word, are presented in both the open Council agenda and the confidential Council agenda. These are not sensitive security details not commercially confidential pricing structures, but compliance observations already disclosed publicly. Yet they are simultaneously treated as confidential.
So, I must ask: where exactly does the Mayor expect councillors to exercise oversight? In the open meeting, where the information is already public? Or in the closed session, where debate is restricted and shielded from the very public, we serve?
This duplication compromises the integrity of Council processes. It blurs the line between transparency and secrecy, and it undermines the purpose of confidential classification altogether. If information is safe for public consumption, it should not be hidden. And if it is truly confidential, it should not appear on the open agenda.
More concerning is what this reflects: poor internal coordination, weak governance controls, and a reporting system that is clearly misaligned. This is not a minor administrative oversight; it is a systemic issue.
Speaker, this Council cannot claim to uphold transparency while simultaneously confusing and duplicating its own processes. The Mayor must explain how this occurred, who authorised it, and what corrective measures will be implemented to prevent a recurrence.
Because right now, what we are seeing is not good governance, it is procedural chaos dressed up as compliance.
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