Inaugural speech by the City's Executive Mayor, Councillor Dan Plato

6 November 2018

Premier of the Western Cape, Helen Zille

Premier Candidate of the Western Cape, Alan Winde

Provincial Ministers

Director General of the Western Cape Government

Fellow Mayors,

And just to take a moment to acknowledge former Mayor, Patricia de Lille, for her stewardship of the City over recent years;

Honourable Speaker

Honourable City Manager

Speaker Clara Meyer (and any other speaker)

Members of Parliament

Members of Provincial Legislatures

Councillors

Executive Directors, Directors and all officials

Religious Leaders

Business Leaders

Honoured Guests

Media

And most importantly, the residents of and visitors to Cape Town

Thank you. Baie dankie. Enkosi.

Thank you for placing your trust in me, and for having faith that, together, with a united Council, we will continue to ensure that the City of Cape Town is the open opportunity city for all. 

I will not be able to do it alone, and will need the support of everyone who shares this City’s vision, and let me repeat that vision now: we are focused on delivering quality services to all residents, serving the residents of Cape Town as a well-governed and corruption-free administration, and being an opportunity city that creates an enabling environment for economic growth and job creation, and that provides assistance to those who need it most. 

This is our vision, and I want to thank the many officials in this administration who have continued to deliver on that vision in spite of challenging times. Those times are over, and we are looking forward now; forward to a positive and prosperous future for all.

Our communities, our councillors, the officials in this City and the different spheres of government will all need to work together towards a common goal.

And to achieve this we need unity. Unity of purpose. Unity of vision. And unity of working hand-in-hand with our communities. Our motto, ‘Making Progress Possible. Together,’ is not just words in a sentence. It is the way that I want all of us to embrace the work that we do.

Ons het al baie vêr gekom, maar daar is nog baie werk om te doen en ek wil herhaal: al hoe ons dit gaan regkry, is deur saam te staan, deur ’n verenigde doel na te streef, en een verenigde visie te deel.

It is clear that we have already accomplished much, and we should celebrate some of our achievements, including having the lowest unemployment rate out of all major cities in South Africa. I would like to thank my colleague in the Western Cape Government, Minister Alan Winde, and Wesgro, for the work they have done to bring investment to Cape Town. There are, however, still people without jobs, so while we are proud of our achievements, we cannot sit back and say that our work is done.

We are a city of growth, and industry has shown that they want to invest in Cape Town. We need to build on this and bring even more business to Cape Town. Because more business means more jobs, and through creating an enabling environment for business to thrive, our people will thrive. 

You are going to hear me calling on our communities to work with us, to help us improve service delivery and to make use of and protect the infrastructure that we provide. We can be the best at service delivery but that won’t matter if our communities don’t play their part.

Ons gemeenskappe moet ook hulle deel doen om ons te help met dienslewering en om te verseker dat die infrastruktuur wat ons verskaf nie beskadig word nie.

Ek beplan om binnekort uit te gaan na ons gemeenskappe en eerstehands by hulle te hoor wat hulle kwel en wat hulle prioriteite is.

My first order of business will be to carry out a listening tour. I want to hear first-hand from the people of this city what their priorities are and what their problems are.

I am very much aware of the challenges facing our communities, but I want to give the people of this city a chance to engage with me, and I am calling on them not to let gatekeepers undermine them.

Make sure the people that represent you have your best interests at heart and are not using you for political games. And where your neighbours damage public infrastructure, let my office know that they are damaging infrastructure that you have worked hard for. Don’t allow it.

Speaker, one of the priorities we will need to address is policing. I know that policing remains a major concern.

One of my first tasks will be to recruit more Metro Police for the City. They cannot replace the role of the South African Police Service (SAPS), but I will make sure that the City does what it can and plays its role when it comes to making our communities safer.

While I welcome the recent announcement of the deployment of the specialised gang unit, a unit that Premier Helen Zille and I have been calling for since around 2012, the reality is that we have fewer SAPS officers now than we have had in recent years. This is a problem for the SAPS, and it is a problem for our communities. 

Now that we have the specialised gang unit, I want to see it become a permanent function of the SAPS in this province and in this city. I will be watching closely and, if that gang unit is removed, I will be the first to call for its return.

With regard to the low levels of police in this city, we cannot allow a situation where in the rest of the country there is one police officer for every 369 people, but in Cape Town there is only 1 police officer for every 560 people; and, in some communities like Nyanga, this number jumps to one police officer for every 628 residents. If the national government does not urgently address this, we will take the legal route to force them to give our communities more police officers, because we are done asking nicely.

Speaker, ons het nie net polisiëring nodig ter wille van polisiëring nie. Ons het dit nodig sodat ons gemeenskappe veilig kan wees. Veilig om gemaklik te voel om treinstasie toe te stap en die trein werk toe te haal, veilig om skool toe te stap en ’n opvoeding te kry wat ons jeug ’n beter toekoms kan gee. Veilig sodat wanneer hulle klaar geleer het, ons kinders buite kan speel en nie oor bendes of geweerskote bekommerd hoef te wees nie.

This is why we need the police and I am committing here, today, that I will do everything I can to make sure the national government gives this city the policing it deserves. Our police need the extra resources, and our communities need the extra police. 

I know what this Council is capable of when we work together, and I know what this city is capable of when we all pull together. During my previous term as Mayor this city hosted the FIFA 2010 World Cup. It took a mammoth amount of cooperation, strategic alignment and a shared vision to ensure its success, and we achieved everything we set out to do.

We might not have another World Cup in the next few years, but that period in the city’s history showed me what we are capable of. It showed the world what Cape Town has to offer and that we are capable of competing with the best. This is exactly what this City is going to do: we are going to pull together and we are going to do our best to deliver quality services to all our people.

Tourism is a R24 billion industry for the Western Cape and much of this benefits Cape Town.

Cape Town should be proud of the many accolades we have achieved in this regard, and those accolades are because of our people. So I want to thank all the hotel staff, the waiters and the coffee baristas, the bus drivers and the tour guides, and everyone else in Cape Town for your friendliness and for welcoming the world to Cape Town. 

Tourism continues to be a major employer for this city, with more than 217 000 jobs created in the Western Cape and again, many of these are situated in Cape Town.

Kaapstad word gereeld aangewys as een van die beste stede in die wêreld om te besoek. Dit is omdat ons mense die beste mense in die wêreld is.

Baie dankie aan almal van julle wat so hard werk om ons besoekers te verwelkom, en seker te maak dat hulle dit so geniet dat hulle weer en weer terugkom. Ek wil meer van ons mense in die toerismesektor betrokke sien, en ek wil meer erkenning gee aan diegene wat dit moontlik maak. 

Even during the biggest water crisis that this city has faced in recent history, we continued to welcome tourists, and they too played their part in helping us defeat Day Zero. 

But most importantly, I want to applaud each and every one of our residents who went to major lengths in helping to change the way we use and see water. I know it wasn’t easy, but it is because of you that we made it through. We will, however, need to continue to conserve water; and by working together with the other spheres of government, we will ensure that our water resilience plans remain on track. 

Met die warm somer wat kom, word daar verwag dat die vraag na water gaan toeneem. Ons moet aanhou om water spaarsaam te gebruik. Moet dus asseblief nie u emmers wegbêre nie, ons het steeds Vlak 5-beperkings en het u samewerking nodig om ons te help om te verseker ons het genoeg water om ons tot die volgende winter deur te dra. 

I do believe though, that with the progress we have made in saving water and the good rainfall we received over the winter, there is room to look at the current tariffs and see where we can bring some further relief to our residents. We hope by next month to be in a position to further reduce our restriction levels, and the accompanying tariffs.

I think it is important to point out how resilient our people are, because even during the water restrictions I see entrepreneurs step up and find business opportunities. For the first time we started seeing waterless car washes, there was suddenly a market for water hardy plants, and solar shower bags. Plumbers were installing mist sprayers on taps and water tanks to catch the rain. 

I want to take this opportunity to quote from our Integrated Development Plan (IDP), our five year integrated development plan, about resilience, which is just one of our guiding principles:

‘Urban resilience is the capacity of individuals, communities, institutions, businesses and systems in a city to survive, overcome, adapt and grow, no matter what chronic stresses and acute shocks they experience. The City views urban resilience as a core factor in achieving its strategic objectives of building a safe, caring, opportunity, inclusive and well-run city.’

I am confident that, with our IDP as our guiding document, our residents will see the value that we deliver. 

Speaker, while there is much to celebrate, there is also serious work to be done, and we will need to give our full attention to addressing the public transport situation in Cape Town. The rail network, another national government function, is bordering on the brink of collapse. And as people turn away from the trains, so we see our roads become increasingly congested.

Just last week the City, together with the Western Cape Government and PRASA, paid for the deployment of a dedicated rail safety unit to keep our commuters safe.

We need our rail system to work as it remains the biggest transporter of our people, who need to get to work, to school, to friends and family, and to places where they can relax and unwind. It will be a top priority for this City to ensure that we have an efficient public transport system to support social inclusion, economic growth and the development of this city.

Under the Democratic Alliance, this city has always had a pro-poor budget and we will continue to prioritise our residents who are most in need. I note the assistance provided to our needy households through the indigent grants.

Many of our residents need adequate housing but the rapid urbanisation experienced in Cape Town is made even more challenging due to the legacy of apartheid spatial design. Our IDP is clear – the City’s Municipal Spatial Development Framework must address the fragmented and inefficient regional and metropolitan spatial form that has resulted from apartheid. Our residents need housing where job opportunities are available. 

We need to use every cent of our available housing budget every year, and we need to make sure that the right processes are followed from the beginning so that we can avoid unnecessary delays. 

We urgently need to overcome this historically restrictive system that has marginalised many of our communities, and this is why the City has adopted a number of plans, including the Transit Oriented Development (TOD) Strategic Framework. We are hard at work on facilitating spatial transformation and also mainstreaming basic service delivery to informal settlements. I will be paying particular attention to these areas because I know how critical they are for our city and its residents.

Speaker, I look around today and I can see a Council that wants to work together. They know there is work to be done, and I know that they are committed to getting the job done. Ek sien uit daarna om saam met julle te werk; saam sal ons seker maak dat Kaapstad 'n geleentheidstad vir almal is.

I have said it over the last few days, and I am going to say it again: effective and efficient service delivery will be a top priority for this administration.

So let me once again say thank you for placing your trust in me. I look forward to working with this united and very capable Council, with our officials, our civil society partners, and with all our communities to make sure the City of Cape Town becomes the very best home to its residents, and the best destination for visitors.

Let us all continue to make progress possible, together.

Thank you. Dankie. Enkosi.

Issued by Media Office, City of Cape Town, 6 November 2018