End to loadshedding would be biggest stimulus for Cape Town's economy, says mayor Hill-Lewis

Cape Town mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis says his mission is to grow the city's economy faster to get people out of poverty and into work.

“We want every South African to be optimistic about the future again and know that South Africa can work, because Cape Town is showing the way,” Hill-Lewis said in his mayoral minute.

For over a century, mayors of Cape Town would publish an annual “mayoral minute” at the end of each year to review the period.

Hill-Lewis said this abruptly stopped in the late 1970s but he was reviving it this year in the hope the tradition would be continued.

“The social, economic, and political context in which the city government operates are characterised by high levels of poverty, unemployment, economic sluggishness, the enduring legacy of apartheid social planning, and extensive national political uncertainty.

“Underscoring these challenges are the impact of the worst power cuts in the history of the country with Eskom implementing record load-shedding for more than 200 days of the year,” the mayor said.

Despite the fact Cape Town had the lowest unemployment rate in the country, an unacceptable number of Capetonians were living in poverty. 

Hill-Lewis said poverty affected everyone, not just the poor. He said poverty was a contributing factor to almost every other social ill, from crime to drug use, from homelessness to family breakdown.

“I believe that if we want to build a better future for ourselves and our children, we have to address the high levels of poverty in our society.

“The best way to do this — and to do it in a way that makes people sustainably better off while securing the dignity that arises from not being dependent on anyone else, especially the state — is to get people into work.”

He said almost every policy and plan that the municipality has pursued this year has held economic growth and increased employment as guiding imperatives.

Tackling crime was one of the municipality’s top priorities. Crime was both a cause and result of low economic growth.

While violent crime was still far too prevalent in Cape Town, the city was actively taking steps to make people safer and the results were promising.

He mentioned the deployment of 1,100 Law Enforcement Advancement Programme (LEAP) officers in a passing-out ceremony in Bishop Lavis in August.

“In collaboration with the Western Cape government, LEAP has seen law enforcement personnel deployed to the most crime-affected areas of the city, including Delft, Nyanga, Gugulethu, Philippi, and Hanover Park.

“Quarterly crime statistics released in November showed encouraging signs that LEAP is working. For example, Philippi East has fallen off the list of the top 30 crime zones in the country.”

Hill-Lewis said between October 2021 and September this year, Gugulethu saw a 30.6% decrease in its murder rate. 

The mayor said Eskom's load-shedding cost Cape Town's economy R75m per stage per day, translating into tens of billions of rand worth of value lost to the local economy each year.

Cape Town's Steenbras hydroelectric facility had become a shining light in the fight against load-shedding as it could protect city customers from two stages of load-shedding some of the time.

However, this year’s regular stage 3 and stage 4 load-shedding — sometimes rising to stage 5 and 6 — meant Cape Town still experienced significant economic damage, he said.

“Ending load-shedding will be the biggest stimulus for the local economy, and this has been a central feature of our governance programme this year.”

The mayor said water and sanitation were the city's most immediate infrastructural priorities.

“We have increased our investment in water and sewage infrastructure to R8bn over three years and have quadrupled our sewer pipe replacement, and we are also investing in improved responsiveness to sewer spills.”

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