COUNCIL SPEECH BY MAYOR, GEORDIN HILL-LEWIS

 

Colleagues,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Fellow Capetonians,

 

Good morning, goeie more, molweni, and welcome to our last council meeting for 2021.

 

Just the day after we last met together, South Africa was put back on the United Kingdom’s ‘red list’ in a knee-jerk reaction not warranted by medical evidence. This was followed by other travel bans from many of the countries where most of Cape Town and South Africa’s tourists come from.

 

This was the worst possible timing for Cape Town’s long suffering tourism and hospitality industry and the tens of thousands of Capetonians who work in this industry. Just when it looked as though this December may see the return of many of our foreign visitors, overnight most bookings were cancelled.

 

Madam Speaker,

 

We did not receive this news well, but we also immediately mobilised to do what we could to help.

 

In three weeks, we have mobilised three different and important interventions to help our city get through this time.

 

First, we pivoted immediately to a domestic tourism campaign, with Cape Town Tourism and Wesgro, to  attract more South Africans to come here for the holiday. Our message was simple: Don’t let travel bans ruin your travel plans. Come to Cape Town!

 

Secondly, on the agenda today is also a temporary scrapping of permit fees for informal traders across the city, which we hope everyone will support.

 

Third, we have arranged to close certain streets with lots of restaurants to vehicle traffic, on certain days, allowing restaurants to spill out in to the street space. This offers diners more safety and peace of mind, and hopefully will help restaurants keep afloat.

 

This initiative starts in Bree Street this Saturday, from 14h00 to 23h00, and will extend to other streets over weekends through December and January.

 

I will be there on Saturday afternoon, and hope to see you there too.

 

I’m proud that Cape Town did not take the bad news lying down, but responded innovatively and quickly to do what we can to help. I’m grateful to the creative and dedicated teams who put the work into these initiatives to get them from idea to results in a matter of days.

 

We did so because we care for the many Capetonians who face hardship and anxiety when the tour they were booked to guide is cancelled, or when their hotel job is put on short time because there aren’t any guests.

 

They are the people we serve with a clear sense of higher purpose, and that is why we must push ourselves to try new things, be nimble and innovative, so that we can help more Capetonians out of poverty and into employment over time.

 

That clear sense of higher purpose was underscored on 1 December, when the StatsSA released employment data showing that a further 660 000 people have lost their jobs across the country, with unemployment now at 46,6% and youth unemployment at a truly unimaginable 77,5%.

 

Every time I read statistics like this, I feel more determined that absolutely everything we do here must be focused on growing the economy meaningfully faster so that we can help lift people out of poverty over time.

 

That cause got an important shot in the arm (excuse the pun) this morning. As of 4am this morning, South Africa has been removed from the UK’s ‘red list’. This is good news for our country and for our city. We hope that many British tourists will still decide to re-instate their travel plans and come to Cape Town this summer. We are ready to welcome them with open arms!

 

I have spoken about how care for people and their lives must drive innovation and a willingness to do things differently.

 

That applies precisely to the organisational change we are deciding on today.

 

The City’s administrative structure must reflect our care for better services and dignity, especially for the poorest residents. And it must reflect a commitment to innovative thinking.

 

The core basic services, including the provision of energy, water and sanitation, and waste management, are at the heart of municipal governance. Infrastructure investment and improved service in these basics are the means by which we contribute to improving the dignity of all Capetonians. And they are pre-requisites for economic growth. We need a laser-like focus on these services, and that is why the proposed macro structure includes the splitting of the water and sanitation and waste management directorate into individual directorates.

 

I know that this split will help give dedicated focus to the different service problems they are working on, and will deliver a better outcome for the public.

 

I expect that each of these directorates will deliver high quality services, that they will be responsive to the public, that when there are problems they will be totally open and work quickly to fix those problems with humility and dedication.

 

The proposal also includes the creation of a Future Planning and Resilience Directorate. I’m particularly excited about this. Cape Town is a rapidly growing city in a developing world context. This comes with profound social, population, infrastructure, climate, health, economic and resource challenges. But also, a bigger, growing, denser city comes with exciting opportunities. Our city is young, we have developed an incredibly innovative local economy, and I absolutely believe that Cape Town with double its current population will be an even better city than it is now. But to make it so, it is essential that we spend time planning for that future.

 

For Cape Town to be a city of hope in South Africa, we need to devote time and resources to Future Planning. Most importantly we need to ensure that we are constantly updating a portfolio of well-prepared capital projects for the short, medium and long-term that are ready for implementation.

 

Along with the structural change we consider today, we are also approving the advertisement process for nine Executive Directors.

 

We are well on our way to a new structure that is geared for more caring basic services, and a stable and secure executive management team with a clear instruction to deliver.

 

This is an important early step in this administration.

 

I have spent many hours over recent weeks meeting with the City’s top management in our different directorates, discussing the challenges we face, and how we can tackle them together as a Team Cape Town.

 

With the proposed new macro structure in place I am confident that we will be able to tackle these challenges and ensure that our residents feel the improved speed, energy and sense of pride in our city that we are constantly looking to build.

 

Speaker, I have also spent recent weeks engaging directly with our residents as part of the public participation process for the new Integrated Development Plan (IDP). Our residents will be hearing ads on radio, and seeing the calls for their input on our social media pages. In many communities our Public Participation Unit is going door-to-door. It was great to join these teams in wards last week. I want to encourage every Capetonian to please take a few minutes and give us your views.

 

Speaking of discussions with residents, I have made a habit of asking every resident I meet if they are vaccinated. I must report that while Cape Town is ahead of the rest of the country, it is still alarming how many people are not yet vaccinated.

 

While we all have a choice, vaccination is the absolute best choice to make for ourselves, those we love, and for our city.

 

We ask every public representative to help spread this message of taking responsibility for our own safety and the safety of others, in every community.

 

Finally, I’ve spoken about the need to clean up our city to build a common sense of pride and love for our home, Cape Town. That starts this weekend with a community clean up in Brooklyn and Rugby, with Councillor Ah Sing, and the local ratepayers. I invite every councillor to organise clean ups and to help start building momentum behind this simple but powerful idea – let’s get together and clean up our city. We’ll start small and build up momentum across the city, to develop a volunteer spirit among Capetonians who are proud of our city and who want to help. I look forward to seeing you out there.

 

Speaker, as this year wraps up and we all start to go on leave, I want to make a special appeal to our residents as well as to the many visitors that we are looking forward to welcoming, to please be safe over the festive season. Be safe on our roads, and rather make use of the many public transport and taxi services available instead of drinking and driving.

 

Please also be safe on our beaches, and remember that the City offers a lifeguard service and a fantastic Identikidz programme at 16 beaches across Cape Town over the festive season, so please make use of it.

 

I thank all the city staff who will be working over the coming weeks. We appreciate all of you and the work that you do to keep our city running, to keep it clean, and to keep our residents safe.

 

To those who celebrate Christmas as a religious holiday, I wish you a blessed Christmas. Regardless of our faith, the message of this season is one of giving, care and love.

 

As we enjoy this December, let us recommit ourselves to demonstrating our caring and compassionate spirit for each other during these difficult times. I encourage every Capetonian to do something – just one thing – this December to bless and help someone less fortunate. By doing just one random act of kindness, we will help to build the more inclusive, more caring Cape Town that we are working towards.

 

I wish you a wonderful and safe festive season.

 

Thank you.

 

Source: City Of Cape Town