Cape Town - The City of Cape Town has plans to spend more than R1 billion on upgrading and indigent relief, including provisions of free water, electricity and refuse removal in Khayelitsha.
That was the message mayor Patricia de Lille was prevented from delivering to the residents at the Oliver Tambo Hall in Khayelitsha this week, when hundreds of young people disrupted a planned community meeting.
Tuesday’s event was to have been the last in a series of public meetings which the mayor and her mayoral committee have held across the city over the past month to report back to communities on its service delivery plans for the next five years.
Similar meetings have already been concluded in Mitchells Plain, Grassy Park, Strand, Atlantis and Kraaifontein.
But police and bodyguards had to escort De Lille and four mayoral committee members out of the hall when hundreds of young people disrupted the planned meeting.
“What makes the situation even more frustrating is that in the case of Khayelitsha, the city is delivering a comprehensive basket of services. We have an enormous challenge to overcome the apartheid legacy of under-development in the area, but when one considers all that we are doing, it becomes clear that there is no merit at all in the ANCYL’s claim that the city is not delivering to the poor and the vulnerable,” De Lille told the Weekend Argus.
In the case of Khayelitsha specifically, the city’s upgrade plans would affect everything from health facilities and small business development, to environmental issues, libraries, traffic calming measures, and even a new swimming pool in Site B.
In addition, each ward in Khayelitsha will receive R700 000 for funding of local projects, such as the upgrading of community facilities. They will also receive part of the R10 million additional allocation as per the Mayoral Redress Programme.
Another R300m is allocated in terms of investment in the Phase 2 roll-out of the IRT N2 express service to Khayelitsha and Mitchells Plain, by December next year.
Other city plans included providing free call lines to report service delivery complaints; indigent relief including free basic services; 2 000 units to be upgraded at Enkanini Phase 2; housing programmes which will deliver more than 4 000 units in the Khayelitsha area; and provision of electricity to 850 informal structures in Enkanini by the end of this month.
De Lille said that the city had reached more than two million people during engagements on the Integrated Development Plan (IDP).
“We held 15 public meetings last year for communities to engage the IDP. I’ve attended eight of these meetings, and now we are taking the IDP to communities to report back on the final decisions and input they made during the public engagements.”
De Lille added it was unfortunate that she could not tell residents of Khayelitsha, a historically neglected area of Cape Town, that the city would be bringing them much-needed relief and development.
The good news city mayor Patricia de Lille had for the people of Khayelitsha:
- R9 million allocated to improve health facilities, including a new clinic in Town 2 and the expansion of Luvuyo clinic.
- R3m allocated to ARV medication.
- R20m on job creation through area cleaning.
- R7.5m to upgrade the Vuyani market.
- R1m upgrade for the Site C Meat market.
- R2m for the Monwabisi Chalet Development.
- R8m to revamp the Solomon Mahlangu Hall.
- R2.5m to upgrade the Khayelitsha wetlands.
- R22m for a new regional library in Kuyasa.
- R8.8m for the construction of the Harare Square Business Hub.
- R10m to upgrade the sewer network and water supply.
- R300 000 for a new swimming pool in Site B.
- More than R500 000 for traffic calming measures.
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