GOOD press statement by Shireen August,
GOOD: City of Cape Town Councillor
18 Augustus 2022
Note: This statement was delivered by GOOD City of Cape Town Councillor, Shireen August, in today’s council meeting on the issue of a 99 year lease for the Granger Bay piece of vacant land for business zoning.
Speaker
The item before is one that lies at the heart of what a good government should be doing.
Development is of utmost importance for economic stimulation, skills transfer, job creation and ultimately, trade. These factors are pivotal in securing our economic armoury against global factors influencing domestic stability.
Speaker
Today, before us, this council is considering granting a 99-year lease on a property in Granger Bay; an important consideration to ensure that the Cities economic machinery remains well oiled. But what I would like this council to also consider, as an addition to this lease, would be that social housing should be included into this agreement.
Think about it this way, labourers, employed by businesses operating on this property will have to travel several kilometers to access their place of employment. Factored into this will be transport cost, rising daily expenses, time away from family and a great number of other considerations.
If social housing forms part of this arrangement, these elements will most definitely fall away and impact the lives of families, both economically, mentally and
physically.
This council and ultimately, this blue administration, can reset the injustices that the DA-led City has been enforcing time and time again.
Under the leadership of former mayor Patricia de Lille, the City would have integrated social housing as part of all developments in this Municipality. But because the value of property matters more than lives and livelihoods to the blue-scaled monster, her efforts to reset all the wrongs were blocked.
Today, this council has the power to decide differently.
Incorporate social housing into this 99-year lease agreement.
Bring people closer to their places of work.
Reset spatial injustice that the DA is purposefully enforcing.
Show South Africa that the most unequal City, in the most unequal country, globally, have people at the centre of their decision-making, and not just the interest of the cabal who enriches themselves at the expense of the poor.
Speaker
A good government puts people before profit, lives before wealth and would reconsider developments that prevents changing a system that has been in operation for decades: that is, to keep poor people of colour on the periphery of the City; far from their jobs, opportunities and their income.
So, I am asking this council to do better. Become a good government.
Thank you.
Media Enquiries:
Shireen August, GOOD: City of Cape Town Councillor
Cell: 082 290 0626
Email: shireen.august@gmail.com
Janke Tolmay, GOOD: Media Manager
Cell: 0733671223
Email: janke@forgood.org.za