SPEECH BY THE CITY'S EXECUTIVE MAYOR, PATRICIA DE LILLE, AT THE FULL COUNCIL SITTING ON 26 MARCH 2014
Good morning, goeiedag, molweni, as-salaam alaikum, shalom.
Mr Speaker,
We aim to be a caring government for all the people of Cape Town.
In this regard, I am pleased to report to this Council that our passenger numbers for the MyCiTi bus service have climbed by 89% in the past four months.
Our R4,6 billion investment to date is paying off.
Last month, an incredible 761 000 passenger journeys were made on our buses, with our West Coast and Inner City routes remaining the most popular.
This comes at a time of exciting new developments for the MyCiTi service, with the launch of the Atlantis route next month and the service to Mitchells Plain and Khayelitsha in July.
This kind of investment is part of our broader spending on redress projects - spending which is seeing us make investments totalling over R100 million in Gugulethu.
These investments include: the Big Lotus River non-motorised transport facility; the upgrading of concrete roads; the laying down of the Gugulethu Stadium synthetic pitch; the upgrading of the Gugulethu electricity substation; the provision of services to backyarders; our hostel transformation project; and the installation of a FreeCall line.
This is in addition to the R5 million the City has recently spent on Mew Way in Khayelitsha to provide signalised pedestrian crossing points and to install approximately 200 flush toilets, 20 taps and wash areas for people to use.
This initial investment will soon be joined by another R36,2 million on major upgrades to Mew Way between Spine and Japtha Masemola Roads to make the area safer for pedestrians and commuters.
And also this month, we undertook to build a new community with the people of Hangberg.
In order to alleviate the housing problem within the Hangberg community, the City of Cape Town purchased four sites for the provision of affordable accommodation in the form of Community Residential Units (CRU), Council rental stock.
The development of the first two sites zoned General Residential will provide an opportunity for us to build 142 Community Residential Units in close proximity to employment opportunities, transport routes, social amenities and schools within the existing surrounding area.
The CRU development will provide a safe and clean living space for the families of Hangberg, which will include grassed and play areas in an enhanced landscaped environment.
This development in Hangberg represents an important part of rebuilding a community where there are serious and significant challenges relating to conflict resolution and pressing social issues.
The project will be over two phases and is set to create 142 housing opportunities in Hangberg.
This first phase is to cost approximately R39 million (incl. VAT) with numerous Expanded Public Works Programme jobs being created during the project.
The second phase will commence on the second site once further approvals have been granted and a construction tender process followed, which is expected to be in the middle of 2015.
All of these investments show that we are committed to transforming this city and bringing about a more lasting reconciliation through positive interventions that aim to create lasting infrastructure and bring people together in an inclusive Cape Town.
Mr Speaker, as part of our commitment to being a caring and safe city, we have also rolled out a new campaign to create awareness of substance abuse using a number of high-profile personalities to drive the message that even if you do not use drugs, combatting them is the responsibility of every resident in the city.
The objective of the campaign is to get people to use the call line to either refer them to a substance abuse counsellor, a law enforcement agency, or another appropriate avenue to deal with queries related to substance abuse.
The 24-hour helpline number is: 0800 435 748.
I urge everyone to get involved in this important initiative and drive home the fact that drugs are everyone's problem and that we can only fight this problem through united community action and individual responsibility.
And as a demonstration of our willingness to listen to the community and be responsive to their needs, we have decided to cancel the Princess Vlei shopping centre project.
After extensive consultation with the developer concerned, we have decided to cancel the proposed sale of the relevant portion of land to build a shopping centre and compensate the developer for the costs incurred on the project thus far.
While the decision to develop that land was taken before the formation of the unicity in 1999, there has been much discussion and indeed opposition from communities in the area.
We have heard you.
Going forward, we will engage with the people of this city to come up with an alternative vision for the Princess Vlei land.
I would like to thank the Executive Deputy Mayor, Alderman Ian Neilson, for leading the City's negotiations with the developer and for helping us resolve this matter.
Mr Speaker, last month this Council chamber was the site of reckless abuse on the part of the ANC.
We attempted to table the draft budget for public participation.
According to the law and our own processes, once we officially tabled the draft budget, the period for comments - from the public and political parties - is open.
This meant that the period for the ANC to give their thoughts and comments on the budget started at the last Council meeting and would last for weeks, including deliberations at the level of Subcouncils.
This is in addition to the fact that draft provisions of budget submissions had gone through Portfolio Committees over the course of several months.
Instead of taking the document to discuss and debate it, the ANC decided to bring their ungovernability campaign into this chamber.
It cost the Council just under R300 000 to print those documents, which the ANC promptly destroyed.
Ratepayers' money is meaningless to them.
They threw the document to the ground and sang and danced as if in triumph.
It is no triumph to admit that you have not been paying attention in Portfolio Committees.
It is no triumph to openly demonstrate that you have no idea how Council works.
And it is no triumph to ignore your responsibilities to your constituents.
The ANC of Madiba has indeed long since passed into history.
I have to ask: what are ANC Councillors paid for?
How can they claim to be representatives of their communities when their only instinct is to disrupt a meeting they have not bothered to understand?
Surely we have better ways to spend ratepayers' money than to pay the salaries of people who don't even know their job description?
It would be so much better for the people in ANC wards if their Councillors spent as much time campaigning for their issues in this Council as they do making cardboard guns.
The business of democracy is serious stuff that requires frank and fulsome debate - but it also requires a level of maturity and respect that the ANC sadly finds in very short supply.
But let us not be deceived.
Let us not be distracted from the antics of the democratically lazy in this chamber who sing racially divisive songs and play with their toy guns like children.
The ANC's proxies are out there in our streets, ensuring that roads are closed and public property is destroyed.
Over the past week, we have seen increased disruptions to key entryways into the city, along Vanguard Drive and the N2.
At these places, and others, barricades of tyres have been erected and set alight.
Not only does this force our law enforcement officers to be diverted from communities that truly need their help, but it means that thousands of our residents are delayed in getting to work on time.
Furthermore, there is a campaign of disruption in Colorado in Mitchells Plain and the nearby Siqalo informal settlement.
Tensions are being stoked and people provoked in order to try and create conflict that will force a City reaction.
We know these tactics.
And while we are disappointed that General Vearey - a man who acts like a politician - chose not to secure the area, we have and will continue to deploy our law enforcement resources to keep the peace and ensure the safety of all residents.
We are engaging with the people of Siqalo and the nearby community to ensure that we are dealing with both the humanitarian needs of those who illegally invaded Siqalo and the legitimate security concerns of the residents of Colorado Park.
Needless to say, these matters are delicate and are not helped by politically motivated actions that attempt to inflame the situation.
For instance, after we installed extra standpipes at Siqalo, they were removed within hours.
Instead of trying to stoke the fires of racial tension, the ANC should be helping to lead these communities.
But we know the calibre of people that the ANC considers leaders in this province.
Both Loyiso Nkohla and Andile Lili have recently been reinstated as full members of the ANC in this province.
Both of these individuals have led ‘poo protests' across the city.
These cheap political exploits do nothing but set the clock back on progress.
They have also led campaigns of destruction in the CBD, leading merry bands of looters across our streets, stealing from street vendors and informal traders alike and disrupting the lives of law-abiding Capetonians.
These kind of reckless thugs are the kind of people the ANC is proud to call its members today.
The ANC of Madiba has indeed long since passed into history.
Mr Speaker, these are the desperate moves of a party that has voluntarily chosen to discriminate against the majority of the population in this city and this province - our Coloured population, while having a similar effect on the Indian population in KwaZulu-Natal.
The national ANC government's regulations for the Employment Equity Amendment Act have as their consequence the continued oppression of Coloured people and Indian people - representatives of whom were at the forefront of the struggle against apartheid.
In terms of these regulations, companies that employ more than 150 people will have to apply national demographics in order to fill positions in the upper three levels of the organisation, i.e. the management and professional levels.
This means that 49% of the people of this province, the Coloured population, can only hold 9% of the management jobs.
After centuries of discrimination, and decades of apartheid making Coloureds and Indians second-class citizens, the ANC chooses to usher in the third decade of democracy by making Coloureds and Indians second-class citizens again.
No wonder the ANC here is so desperate.
No wonder its provincial leader, Marius Fransman, that vicious anti-Semite and race-baiter, is shadow boxing himself into irrelevance.
His own party, the ANC of President Zuma, has declared itself a party of black nationalist domination, with the occasional attempt at disguise by uttering the odd empty statement about multi-racialism.
Will the ANC in this Council publicly commit themselves to the position of their national masters at Luthuli House?
Or will they proclaim their commitment to the pledge of the New South Africa, and the future of our Coloured community, and reject the racist policies of President Zuma's ANC?
Mr Speaker, for our part, the City will not implement racial quotas that marginalise the majority of our people.
We will not implement apartheid racial planning masquerading as affirmative action.
We support employment equity that broadens opportunities for all and that supports people to get promotions based on merit and hard work.
This administration will fight for this principle of fairness all the way to the highest court in the land if necessary.
In conclusion, the route to reconciliation through redress is a long and hard journey.
It requires patience, consultation with communities, public engagement and the courage to make investments for the future.
While these are not easy things, they are worthwhile doing for the well-being of Cape Town.
They require frank debate and sometimes disagreement but that is the essence of the democracy that we fought for.
Unfortunately, the ANC in Cape Town has long since forgotten what they fought for - all they remember are cheap gimmicks and an impulse to destroy; not to build.
The ANC of Madiba has indeed long since passed into history.
But Madiba's vision hasn't - it is being kept alive by this government and all those who believe that a South Africa that belongs to everyone is a dream worth fighting for.
Thank you, baie dankie, enkosi.
Issued by the City of Cape Town, March 26 2014
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