By Nombini Matomela
THE City of Cape Town has set aside nearly R18 billion to provide shelter and create jobs for all citizens by the next decade.
Tabling the city's budget yesterday, Mayor Nomaindia Mfeketo said creating integrated human settlements; job opportunities, poverty alleviation and economic growth were among key priorities for the 2005/6 financial year.
The budget was based on the revised Integrated Development Plan (IDP), which seeks to give guidance to municipalities on how to tackle development challenges.
The theme for this year's budget speech was: "There shall be houses, security and comfort."
"This is a transformation budget; it seeks to transform our legacy of inequality and division of narrow based development of slow growth. In particular, it is a budget that tackles the massive housing need of so many of our citizens head-on. Housing for all is the key priority," the mayor said.
Even though there are indications that the city is reaching targets regarding service delivery, Mfeketo emphasised that countless challenges were still lingering.
It is estimated that 265 000 families required adequate shelter and basic services while unemployment in Cape Town is approximately standing at 19 percent of the labour force of about 375 000.
Roughly, about 33 percent of households (a million people) live in poverty while the number of tuberculosis (TB) cases in the last four years escalated by almost 46 percent with half of them HIV positive.
Although crime levels decreased, high levels of violent crime continued to destabilise communities. On that note, the mayor said recent taxi violence and killings remained a constant reminder that violence was rife in the surrounding communities.
"Our council, through its programmes will therefore continue to play a leading role in eradicating violence in all its forms in the city," she said.
Nevertheless, Mfeketo is adamant that with the city's new approach to housing, the council will be in a position to provide shelter to all families needing houses, those living in backyards and those with no shelter at all.
The council will also be exploring how to facilitate new forms of funding for housing, development levies and other linked development mechanisms to assist low-income families.
"Our housing target should be to ensure that we facilitate the provision of housing for all the current 265 000 families in need over the next decade."
In the coming year, the mayor promised to develop 30 000 houses through direct funding by government. A further 22 000 will be built as part of the N2 Gateway project. This project is set to improve the quality of life for thousands of residents as well as enhance their ability to participate in the economy. The council also believed that the focus of housing delivery needed to shift to facilitate better quality housing closer to opportunities.
"We remain committed to shifting urban growth from the periphery of the city to the urban core, the denser centre of Cape Town, through facilitating mixed use, mixed income and medium to high-density development on well-located land such as Culemborg, Ysterplaat, Wingfield and Youngsfield."
Between those areas about 530 hectares of land could provide up to 25 000 housing units. The council also aimed at increasing the current average of three to four percent of the city's economic growth to a maximum of seven percent.
It is also committed to creating jobs especially blue-collar jobs, jobs for youth, women and broaden black economic empowerment.
Source: BuaNews
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