Meet the Mayor: Part 5/5
Cape Town is a beautiful, vibrant city with plenty to offer visitors from across the country and around the world.
Unfortunately, with rampant crime, rolling blackouts and a water supply that is constantly under duress, it also has its problems that need to be addressed.
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In the fifth and final part of our series on Geordin Hill-Lewis, we discuss the mayor’s vision for Cape Town and the CoCT’s plans to ensure that it continues to prosper when faced with tremendous adversity.
‘Cape Town does have a lot of problems which are very much in the context of South Africa,’ Hill-Lewis said in an exclusive interview at his home in Edgemead.
‘We still face all the problems of poverty, unemployment and crime faced by most South African cities as well as many others in developing countries around the world.’
‘There are still far too many people that live in really tough conditions of poverty, creating a lot of difficult, everyday features that rob people of economic opportunities, the chance to improve their circumstances and create a better life for their children.’
‘If I could change anything, I would like to see less people living in poverty and more people having jobs in a better economy.’
‘That is exactly what I’m trying to do in politics and in the city.’
In terms of ensuring water and electricity supply for Cape Town, Hill-Lewis said that the CoCT was hard at work developing infrastructure to ensure access to these essential resources, adding that the City had taken significant action to address public concern in this regard.
‘We are harnessing our own new supplies of water and aim to be able to provide more than a third of the city’s water needs from new sources of water that we essentially make ourselves by the end of the decade.’
‘We have a number of projects like drilling into our aquifers and are currently drawing water from the Cape Flats and Table Mountain.’
‘We will increase the amount of water that we are drawing from these sources in the future.’
‘Next year, we will also start construction on a very large water recycling plant in Cape Town, which will be a first for our city and will provide about 100 megalitres per day once it is completed.’
‘By the end of the decade, we will be very resilient to whatever the environment can throw at us in terms of drought.’
According to Hill-Lewis, CoCT is taking a similar approach to providing a consistent supply of electricity to the city.
‘We are trying to buy new sources of electricity that are not from Eskom, particularly from independent power producers (IPPs), and have already gone to market to buy 700 megawatts of power from IPPs,’ he added. ‘This would protect the city against stage 4 loadshedding and possibly even further in the next couple of years.’
Hill-Lewis also believes that Cape Town is a model for the rest of the country in terms of addressing poverty, crime and service delivery.
‘We feel that our country can work, but at the moment it is difficult to remain positive about the future of South Africa,’ he explained. ‘We want people to look at Cape Town as an example of how things could work elsewhere.’
‘There is no reason why it can’t be the same in places like Durban and Ekurhuleni.’
‘It’s the same country and the same people, so if it is possible here, why not elsewhere?’
‘We are explicitly trying to be that example, not just in terms of water and electricity but in everything to do with local government.’
‘You don’t just have to throw your hands up and say that there is nothing we can do about it because these challenges are too difficult, too old, too big.’
‘We can actually knock down unemployment, as we are doing, which is why two thirds of the jobs created in the country in the last quarter were created in Cape Town.’
‘We can do something, and that is what we are trying to show.’
The mayor is predicting an absolute boom for Cape Town over the next decade, especially after the resilience shown by the city during the pandemic.
‘Obviously, we suffered greatly through Covid because the city relies heavily on its tourist economy,’ he remarked. ‘The pandemic probably hit Cape Town harder than anywhere else, but we are back and will soon reenter boom times.’
‘We are seeing massive semigration and a big boost in property prices.’
However, this comes with its own problems because it makes it very expensive to live here now.
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‘We are also seeing more and more business moving here, which I believe will accelerate greatly, especially when we can sort out the energy crisis and loadshedding, which will make it even more attractive to come to a city that is working.’
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Cape Town’s reliable service delivery is attracting more business
Picture: Monique de Beer Photography