Part 2
Speaker, there have been some negative reports recently about the new stadium in Green Point being a "white elephant". This criticism and unrealistic and unwarranted doomsday scenarios have come from known critics over the past three years.
Today, Council is considering two important reports - one for the naming of the stadium and the other to consider the approval of the lease agreement with SAIL/Stade de France, the operator of the stadium after the 2010 World Cup.
The hosting of 2010 World Cup is a South African and African effort. Our stadium is part of a national business plan, led by the national government. It is a multi-purpose stadium suitable for soccer, rugby, events and concerts. SAIL is one of the largest sport marketing companies in South Africa and Stade de France, who operate a successful and profitable 80 000 multi-purpose stadium, were successful bidders to operate the stadium in an international tender. Their bid is confirmation of the stadium's viability and sustainability.
The City will receive 30% earnings before tax. This will be based on formal audited statements. The stadium is brand new, so in the initial years when we have to establish and market the stadium, maintenance costs should be low. With its proximity to the tourism and business centre of the city and its unique and incredibly beautiful location, we believe it will become a major asset and attraction for our city.
It is quite significant that property prices in the surrounding Green Point area have risen significantly since the start of the stadium construction.When we started the Convention Centre, critics said we did not need it. Now it hosts up to 120 090 delegates per year and it is booked out years in advance.
Speaker, because of the World Cup, Cape Town is receiving an injection of around R12 billion into its economic base from new and upgraded infrastructure. This investment will make Cape Town a better place to live for many decades to come.The key new infrastructure improvements are upgrades to the airport, the rail system, several major road interchanges, the Grand Parade, and the Philippi and Athlone stadiums and the redevelopment of the Green Point Common as an urban park and sport precinct. Cape Town needs all of this for 2011 and beyond, but it's 2010 that has kick-started it into actually happening.
Hosting 2010 is a global marketing opportunity. The key to the long-term benefits flowing from this event are contained in two words: ‘visitor experiences'. If Capetonians are superb hosts and they offer excellent service and goods at fair prices, we will have thousands of ambassadors, return visitors and investors. This is a chance to prove what we're worth on a scale that has never before been possible.
Speaker, by the end of the month we expect to have resolved the illegal occupation of a pavement in Symphony Way . The Symphony Way eviction application commenced in February and was postponed on various occasions to enable the respondents to obtain legal representation and file answering affidavits.
The application was for the eviction of approximately 103 families who are occupying a pavement some 400 metres long in Symphony Way, Delft and would allow for the removal of their make-shift shelters. The City sought to relocate the parties further down the road to the Symphony Way Delft Temporary Relocation Area (‘Blikkiesdorp') where better shelters and services are available.
On Monday 19 October the matter was finalised in the Western Cape High Court and an eviction order was obtained.
The Judge ordered the parties to engage meaningfully in order to reach consensus. Due to intensive negotiations with the community, the relocation of the first 23 families commenced on Monday 26 October and the community has committed to complete the relocation by the end of this week. As Mayor I would like to commend the Housing Directorate for ensuring and assisting the smooth relocation, and thank the community for working with the City to manage this in a peaceful manner.
There has been a great deal of media publicity around an article in a local newspaper that labelled Cape Town a racist city. The article is centred on a selective study of some companies in the retail, finance and petro-chemical industries. Many of our leading industries like agriculture, tourism, advertising and the creative arts were not consulted and neither was the City of Cape Town.
As the largest employer in the Western Cape I think it is important that the public are made aware of the City of Cape Town's progress with regards to integration and employment equity.The City of Cape Town, like all municipalities in South Africa , faces a wide range of historically created challenges to integrating its diverse communities and working towards a situation where every citizen, regardless of their background, has equal opportunities in life.
In order to achieve this, the City has a number of initiatives underway, including plans for ambitious urban spatial development planning that will minimise the geographic divides that separate some areas of our city. One important component of this is the new Integrated Rapid Transit system, which will make urban mobility more accessible for all of Cape Town's residents.
The City of Cape Town far exceeds most of the benchmark targets for Employment Equity:
* The benchmark for Black males is 15,8 %, while we at City have a rating of 16,5%
* For Coloured males the benchmark is 27,3 %, while we have a rating of 44, 3%
* The sentiment that special preference is being given to Whites is also unfounded. For White males the benchmark is 10% and we have a rating of 9,4%
Gender equity in the workplace remains a world-wide challenge and the City of Cape Town is making significant strides in addressing this issue.
The City of Cape Town actively drives and supports the principles and implementation of Employment Equity and the attraction, development and retention of this category of scarce skills is a high priority.
Through the Human Capital Management Programme and Strategy the City is focusing on the attraction, development and retention of all talented individuals. This strategy is multi-faceted and focuses on a wide range of interventions including the provision of bursaries, learnerships and graduate internships; innovative attraction strategies focused at various stages of the employee life cycle; a wide range of developmental programmes including personal developmental plans, defined career pathing and other interventions supporting career and succession planning.
Speaker, in a bid to address the current situation with regard to the relatively low levels of black professionals willing to relocate to Cape Town, the concept of a collaborative forum comprising of employers in the Western Cape , tertiary institutions and other relevant stakeholders is proposed. The City is currently already in such a collaborative partnership with the four tertiary institutions in the Western Cape.
This partnership has provided fertile ground for exploring and seeking solutions to some of the problem areas. It needs to be expanded to include local business and other stakeholders in order to adequately and holistically address the core issues. There is little point in each employer ‘going it alone' on this issue.
There needs to be a shift in the branding strategy away from a purely employer of choice perspective to a destination of choice perspective. We must brand Cape Town as an attractive location to live and work in; this type of branding will require close collaboration and the support of other stakeholders.
The City welcomes the debate that this article has created, but hopes that a full analysis of the existing realities will be taken into account, so that meaningful progress can be made towards a truly harmonious and integrated South Africa . It is important that we manage any negative perceptions of our city and remember that we are all worthy of being called Africans, regardless of our language or the colour of our skin.
In Cape Town provision of basic services to our numerous informal settlement areas is a challenge. This is exacerbated by continuous migration into the city.
However, significant investment has taken place in the informal settlement over the past three years.
Five informal settlements were selected as pilot project sites to test a revised approach to service delivery to informal settlements. This revised approach will develop and benchmark best-practices in respect of a sustainable, inclusive and participatory community-based service delivery.
The testing of this new approach has started in five settlements with the first phase being the Partnership Development Phase,. This will provide us with a community-based Area Development Strategy which will inform programmes, budget and resources.
The provision of basic services that have been delivered since the inception of the Informal Settlements Master Plan in 2007 has increased dramatically.
* Provision of water services has increased from 71,4% in 2007 to 82,2% as of September 2009
* Sanitation from 58,8% to 77,7%
* Solid waste from 61% to 100%
* Electrification from 30% to 48,4%
