GOOD Press Statement by Suzette Little ,
GOOD City of Cape Town Councillor & Caucus Chairperson
5 December 2024
Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis’s speech has once again reinforced the City of Cape Town’s preferencing of a small and elite section of Capetonians at the cost of the majority poor and working-class majority who live and suffer on the outskirts of our segregated city.
CRIME AND VIOLENCE
Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis crows about 114 guns recovered in Manenberg. We attribute this to a cynical electoral blitz by the Democratic Alliance for a recent by-election. Why do communities not receive the same attention when there isn’t a by-election?
Shot Spotter is a R30 million failure designed to redirect money from the city’s fiscus to private service providers. It is easily spoofed by blanks and fireworks. Most, if not all of these seizures and arrests relied on information received from the community.
And instead of an army of undertrained LEAP Officers, what we actually need is an army of nurses, teachers, artisans, social workers, and holistic revitalization of the war zones where our poor and working class live.
PLACE A MORATORIUM ON THE SALE OF LAND IN CAPE TOWN
In 18 years of DA governance in the City of Cape Town, not one single affordable housing unit has been built in the inner city.
Some of our most prime land is being sold to the highest bidder, a veritable Black Friday special for developers.
There is no guarantee that any public participation process, a weak and compromised box-ticking exercise that is not grounded in any City policy, will accommodate the poor and working class in these developments.
Public land must be used for public good. The unseemly rush to sell to developers while an affordable housing policy is being formulated smacks of rank opportunism.
GOOD calls for a moratorium on further sales of land until the affordable housing policy is formulated in mid-2025. This is not an unreasonable ask of an administration that professes to be a “caring city”
CITY’S POLICY ON PEOPLE SLEEPING ROUGH
The City’s policy on people sleeping rough is not to resolve the problem at the root of this societal dysfunction.
The objective was never about reintegrating people into society and to have empathy with our most vulnerable. and take care of the most vulnerable.
The objective is to move those that the City deems unworthy of assistance out of sight, and out of mind.
REVITALIZING THE CBD OF THE CITY
The revitalization of Cape Town’s CBD is welcome. But as GOOD, we want to know when the City of Cape Town will make the same decision to revitalize communities on the other side of the M3 highway, with a focus on the Cape Flats and neglected townships in the shadow of the mountain.
We have witnessed this DA led government making a political decision on Electricity by increasing the tariffs. We question why the City does not apply the same boldness when it comes to the redevelopment of our areas that are not in the CBD.
RAIL DEVOLUTION IN THE CITY OF CAPE TOWN
The GOOD Party will not be supporting the City of Cape Town Council item on the Rail Devolution Report.
As a party, we support an integrated public transport network under the management of the City of Cape Town, including the devolution of the commuter rail service.
The strategy was initially championed by GOOD Secretary-General Brett Herron when he was the City’s MMC for transport.
However, there is a fundamental flaw in the current rail devolution ownership models presented in the City’s first report.
They are the most costly and least likely to ever be implemented.
The correct model would be for the devolution of the rail network (the tracks and stations) and the signalling system to the City and to contract Metrorail to operate the rail service on the devolved network to the extent that Metrorail can.
The City should not own or operate the trains and Metrorail should remain a subsidiary of PRASA.
Where Metrorail is unable to meet the frequency of service required by the City’s supply and demand studies then the City must procure that shortfall from other operators.
FILMING BY-LAW AND DISRESPECT OF PUBLIC PARTICIPATION
The filming by-law has been foisted on the City, despite the objections raised by a number of groups including filmmakers and residents.
Of the 222 comments received, 74 comments came from the City and its officials, all noting the amendment. Film industry professionals and residents contributed 148 comments, who did not support it.
This once again highlights the fact that the City of Cape Town has no public participation policy. It does not care for public participation. It forces decisions made by the mayor and his inner circle onto residents.
GOOD’s motion for the creation and adoption of a public participation policy has been wilfully ignored. This vacuum affects all departments and all residents.
Without this policy, public participation is merely a box-ticking exercise that erodes democratic values and exposes the Mayor and the Mayco as being fearful of the democratic will of the people.
Rather the city leaves it in the hands of 132 DA councillors, who are not subject matter experts in most things affecting the City, including filming.
CITY FACILITIES
In the sweltering heat, the mayor has promised that the City’s public pool facilities will be open by Christmas. These pools should have already been open to the public.
The mayor cannot pretend that summer has taken the city by surprise. This is not the hallmark of the so-called “best-run city.”
For the next three weeks, the mainly poor and working class will be met with closed doors at these facilities.
RELOCATION OF THE S.A.T.S GENERAL BOTHA MEMORIAL
With the relocation of this monument, the name of General Botha would stretch from Simonstown, past arch-colonialist Cecil John Rhodes’ memorial, all the way to our national parliament.
This preferencing of one narrative in Cape Town mutes the stories of the rest of our rich heritage in this city.
Our heritage in this city is a cord made of diverse strands. The heritage landscape of this city mainly preferences one kind of heritage, one prominent strand – that of white supremacy, colonial oppression. This leaves us all at a loss.
We ask the Mayor and this council to recognise that the cord of our common history has many strands. We challenge the mayor to meaningfully platform stories of our indigenous and struggle heritage, which is being lost.
Our complex and beautiful heritage is being lost, crushed between the City’s development agenda and its fetishization of colonial history.
We watch with interest as to what the city will memorialize going forward.
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