The City of Cape Town proposes to spend more than R850-million over the next three years on informal settlement upgrades and backyard services.
NEWS
Cape Town’ s R850m upgrade
The City of Cape Town proposes to spend more than R850-million over the next three years on informal settlement upgrades and backyard services.
As part of its drive to transform living conditions in informal settlements, some R713-million is earmarked to be spent by the City’ s Informal Settlements and Backyarder Department on backyarder service provision and the informal settlements upgrade programme between 2018 and 2021.
At the same time, R150-million is planned to provide electricity services to backyard dwellers by the City’ s Electricity Services Department.
“ The mainstreaming of basic service delivery to informal settlements and backyard dwellers and achieving excellence in basic service delivery in general, are pillars of the City’ s transformational priorities in accordance with our Organisational Development and Transformation Plan.
“ The roll-out of the City’ s backyarder and upgrade programmes are absolutely dependent on the cooperation of the communities involved and the support from the beneficiaries and other partners,” says the City’ s mayoral committee member for Informal Settlements, Water and Waste Services and Energy, councillor Xanthea Limberg. The proposed spend is part of the continuing shift that is happening in the human settlements sphere. The delivery model where government is the sole provider of housing opportunities, which consist mostly of costly formal housing characterised by lengthy processes, is unsustainable.
“ The increased focus on backyarders, the upgrading of informal settlements and associated expansion of services is therefore a wave of change that is rolling over the human settlement sphere. We hope that this focus will enable us to not only improve the lives of our residents but that, going forward, we will be able to provide housing opportunities on a larger scale than before,” concludes Limberg.
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