STATEMENT BY EXECUTIVE MAYOR ALDERMAN PATRICIA DE LILLE AFTER MEETING WITH THE SOCIAL JUSTICE COALITION

Today, I asked the Social Justice Coalition (SJC) to work with the City of Cape Town as constructive partners. I asked the SJC to use its specialist knowledge of Khayelitsha to assist us in providing the highest level of services possible to the people of that community.

We want the SJC to be our partners in service delivery and show their commitment to helping the people of Cape Town by positively engaging with government.

We must realise that we all bear responsibility for providing to our citizens and maintaining our city.

The City of Cape Town is committed to becoming a more caring and inclusive metro that provides basic services to all of its residents. According to numerous independent assessments, including from the National Department of Local Government and Traditional Affairs, Cape Town provides a higher proportion of basic services to its citizens than any other metro in the country.

There are still numerous challenges that exist, including limited resources at our disposal, urbanisation, hydrogeological conditions and densification. We are also limited by the extent that we can provide by a legislative framework that prevents the City from providing services on privately-owned land. All of these challenges must also be viewed in conjunction with our mandate as local government to make sure we provide for all areas of the city.

However, we are always willing to work with partners to improve the situation where they have local expertise that can benefit the people of Cape Town. Such partnerships are models of the type of collaborative engagement we want to create between government and interested stakeholders.

Part of this collaboration is getting the assistance of the SJC to work towards eradicating existing sanitation backlogs, especially when we begin consultation on the new IDP. Our commitment to service provision to poorer communities is reflected in the fact that this financial year, we will be spending R1,2 billion on basic services to the poor.

There is clearly much work that needs to be done. We have allocated resources, both financial and human, to this task. We must work together for all of the people of our city.

In this regard, I will be asking the Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, the Most Revd. Thabo Makgoba, and the Western Cape Religious Leaders Forum, to help the City as we do our part to give dignity to our people.

We also need partners on the ground. We look forward to the SJC and others constructively engaging with us to assist us in the future.

Statement issued by the Communication Department, City of Cape Town, July 7 2011

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