GOOD Statement by Wesley Neumann,
GOOD City of Cape Town Councillor
18 November 2024
The GOOD Party is calling for the City of Cape Town to realign its budget to deal with the current health crisis.
On Friday, 15th November, the President addressed the nation on the rise in reported cases of food-borne illnesses and deaths.
Over the last few weeks alone, food-borne illnesses have claimed the lives of at least 22 of our nation’s children.
Investigations revealed that numerous spaza shops were storing food items alongside pesticides and detergents.
The President outlined numerous interventions to prevent further contamination.
The first intervention is to get hazardous pesticides off the street. As GOOD, we are confident the City of Cape Town is fully able to implement this. Law enforcement agencies will be ready and able to investigate, arrest and prosecute offenders. The City is flooded with LEAP officers.
The second critical intervention is to protect children from exposure to these substances. As part of this intervention the Department of Basic Education and School Governing Bodies, together with the Department of Health, will review and update the guidelines for schools on the management of suppliers of foodstuffs to public schools. This will include tuck shops operated at these schools.
As GOOD, we are concerned the Western Cape is already facing an education crisis due to poorly allocated budgets. It has already threatened to lose 2,400 teacher posts. The City of Cape Town is not being spared from these budget constraints. This broken department will not have the capacity to manage and implement these important strategies.
According to Brett Herron, GOOD Secretary-General, the Western Cape has chosen to deprioritise and defund education to the extent it is happy to slash teacher posts. Herron has already called on the National government to close this loophole by removing the provinces’ discretion to spend the Provincial Equitable Share (the money it receives from national) as it wishes.
The third critical intervention is to prevent future outbreaks. Our local municipalities will be required to take urgent action to address the problem of rat infestations by cleaning cities and towns and removing waste.
City officials are failing to stay on top of waste management and illegal dumping in poorer communities.
Last week, Suzette Little, GOOD Cape Town Councillor & Caucus Chairperson highlighted GOOD’s concern that the City of Cape Town has a policy of only issuing one bin for three public housing flat units and social housing and or flats. This policy is further exacerbating the illegal dumping across the city.
As GOOD we call on the City to have an emergency budget realignment and to ensure that the Education, Health and Waste management departments are properly funded to ensure we can deal with the crisis.
As GOOD we strongly agree with the President, “We must do what it takes to make sure such tragedies never happen again.’’
Media Enquiries: media@forgood.org.za