Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis has announced that the city is allocating R24 million to acquire new specialised vehicles and equipment to speedily address sewer challenges across Cape Town. This commitment is based on the initial visits to Khayelitsha and Phoenix on his first day of office which served to inspect sewer challenges.
Upgrades to the City will include, specialised vehicles for sewerage, a safe space programme for the homeless and upgrades to the Muizenberg huts.
Hill-Lewis said: “On my very first day back in the office, I went to Khayelitsha to do a service delivery inspection of sewers bills and sewers blockages. This is a problem in many parts of the city, with around 300 spills being reported every day. If we are serious about dignity, this cannot happen. The only real solution lies in major infrastructure investments, which must be done, but that takes time and we need to see an improvement now. I’ve asked for a short term sewer spill intervention plan in November.
“Today I can confirm that this plan is now in place. To improve response time, we’ve budgeted R24 million to buy four new jet trucks, one new jet vac truck, one new vacuum tanker and six new grabber trucks. We’ve also set the ambitious target of more than trebling our proactive pipe replacement programme, with the aim to get to 100km of sewer pipe replacement per year.”
“We show what is important to us as a new government and we show indications of where our investments will be in the main budget and in the years ahead. This is a budget that demonstrates care and which gives people dignity. We do this today by allocating R600 million additional to free basic services for the poorest residents. Cape Town will now spend R3.7 billion this year on free basic services for poor residents.
“More than any other city in South Africa. We do this because we know that families are experiencing hardship. They have just gone through two very difficult years as many, many thousands have lost their jobs and they need help. R100 million to cleansing and informal areas, R24 million for new vehicles for a sewer spill intervention plan, R10 million for safe spaces for the homeless and R2 million for title deeds.”
R3 million has been allocated to help refurbish Muizenberg beach huts.
“We’ve allocated R3 million for the repair and refurbishment of the Muizenberg beach huts and lifeguard huts. These huts have long been an iconic image in Cape Town’s colourful landscape and they are literally a post guard for Cape Town tourism. But they have fallen into terrible disrepair and do not demonstrate the pride we are trying to build.
“Their refurbishment has thus far been led by a wonderful group of residents who have run their own fundraising campaign to save the huts and preserve this iconic Cape Town image. We are so grateful for this kind of citizen-led pride in Cape Town and we are happy now to be able to contribute to their refurbishment efforts”, concludes Hill-Lewis.
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Picture: Cape {town} Etc gallery