Council Speech 29 January 2026
29 January 2026
Council Speech 29 January 2026
Madam Speaker
Fellow Councillors
Goeiemôre, molweni, as-salamu alaykum, shalom, good morning,
Strictly speaking, this is not our first council meeting of 2026. We had a wonderful first meeting last week in City Hall during which we bestowed the Freedom of the City on two of Cape Town’s most cherished treasures: David Kramer and the late Taliep Petersen.
It was an evening of strong emotions and deep meaning, as we revisited the lives and works of these two giants. And it was also a reminder of some of the things that make Cape Town such a unique and beautiful place.
But today is our first “all work, no play” meeting of the year, and so I would like to officially welcome you all back to work, and to what promises to be a very busy and productive 2026.
I hope you are all well rested and recharged, because what we need to achieve this year will require all of your energy and passion.
I am looking forward to a year in which we will break new records and surpass all our previous achievements in delivering dignity, opportunity and hope to the residents of Cape Town, and building this city to its full potential.
Those of you who joined us last week in City Hall for the Freedom of the City ceremony were privileged to be part of a very special occasion.
Colleagues,
I would like to extend the City’s thanks and appreciation for every member of this incredible Team Cape Town who was on duty over the Christmas and New Year period, and who helped ensure that we had one of our best festive seasons ever.
It takes a monumental effort from so many different departments and organisations to keep Capetonians and visitors safe on our roads, beaches and mountains, to ensure that our city’s public spaces look clean and welcoming over this busy period, to fight fires, to assist those in need, to attend to faults, and to maintain all our public facilities, while most people are on holiday.
And I am pleased to say that Team Cape Town achieved all of this and more.
Our beaches were clean, our public pools were open and so well used, our City services over this time worked like clockwork, and even when things went wrong, as they always will, our teams were responsive. That makes me very proud of this team.
This Festive Season also capped our best ever year in terms of passenger numbers through Cape Town International Airport, with more than 11 million passengers passing through the terminal in 2025. This is the first time we have ever broken through the 11 million passenger number.
In just December alone, we broke our previous record by welcoming 364,000 international passengers through the airport, and 754,000 domestic passengers.
We also saw some incredibly positive data from Yoco, a local point-of-sale payments company which dominates in the small and neighbourhood business sector across SA. They service more than 200 000 small businesses across the country.
Here’s what their numbers show:
- During the festive season, international visitors spent over R500m in Cape Town’s small and neighbourhood businesses. That’s half a billion rand in a little over a month. And remember, this is just through the Yoco system.
- Bartenders and waitstaff earned R14m in tips from international guests.
- International card transactions were up 23% year-on-year in Cape Town.
It is no exaggeration to say that tourism in Cape Town is now surely the strongest growing segment of the whole country’s economy. If the rest of South Africa’s economy was growing at the same pace, unemployment would be halved in a very short space of time.
Local businesses are at the heart of the success of the tourism economy, and it’s really great to see local and neighbourhood businesses thriving.
As Capetonians, this data should excite us all. This represents income for Capetonians, more jobs for Capetonians, and more people getting out of poverty. That’s our mission!
And with even more new airlines and direct flight to be added in 2026, we are on track ramp these numbers up even more in the coming years, and create even more jobs in hotels and restaurants and small businesses and transport and retail and countless others.
We are grateful for all the work that has gone into making this possible by marketing our city to the world, and by working hard to open our skies to more and more inbound flights.
Madam Speaker,
The most important item on today’s agenda is the passing of the Adjustment Budget.
Our budgets are the most critical step in delivering on our pledges to the residents of Cape Town, and our very capable Finance team puts in a huge amount of effort to ensure that our priorities are correctly reflected, that our important projects are entirely funded, and that the City’s finances remain sustainable throughout this.
This Adjustment Budget reflects changes made to our capital budget midway through the financial year to bring the budget in line with any changes to the pace and scope of our many projects.
It is a very lengthy and detailed document, but I want to briefly touch on a couple of significant items – projects that will impact the lives of many Capetonians, and for which we had to shift money either forward or back to optimally fund them.
The first of these is the N2 Edge project – the security barrier to be constructed along a stretch of the N2 highway, and which will make a significant positive difference to the safety of every motorist along that stretch, and the reduction of pedestrian fatalities.
Now, I’ve already seen some of the predictable responses and charges on this. So let me be clear about a few things.
First, the N2 already has a security barrier, it is just completely dilapidated and there is nearly nothing left of it. It needs to be replaced.
Second, it is not fair to the hundreds of thousands of daily users of the N2 that they must be subject to the attacks of a small number of criminal elements on their commute to work and back.
This is not fair to the residents of Khayelitsha, and Mitchells Plain, and Blue Downs, and Eerste River, and Mfuleni, and Helderberg, and even people from neighbouring towns who come to Cape Town to work every day, from Stellenbosch and Theewaterskloof – literally hundreds of thousands of people a day use that road, and many of them feel unsafe on that road. And that is not fair to them. It is their safety that I care deeply about.
There is nothing that we will not do to improve the safety of Capetonians. We will investigate crime, train more officers, invest in technology, buy more vehicles, build whatever we must, do whatever we must, to make Cape Town safer.
And if you want to campaign against a safer Cape Town, be my guest.
And it matters not to me that it is actually someone else’s job. Just as in energy, and in policing, and in public transport, our approach is always the same: if there is a state institution that is failing our people, we must try to do what we can to help. That is a government that cares.
Third, we will not just be building a safety barrier. We will also be fixing the road embankment along the N2 to actually make it better and more dignified for the communities along that stretch of road.
We’re talking new pedestrian crossings, improved lighting and access control, as well as the landscaping of the embankments and all necessary fire and flood considerations.
We’re also talking secondary interventions such as designated recreational spaces in adjacent communities, safer grazing and urban agriculture practices, reducing the scope for illegal dumping, and other opportunities arising from extensive engagements with communities along the N2 to provide their input in the coming months.
We envisage that, beyond the immediate benefits of crime reduction, pedestrian safety and better control over the movement of livestock, the N2 Edge project will also significantly improve the overall public space.
So you will see Urban Mobility’s budget increased by R7m this year for the detailed design of the project, and then a further R108m in the 2027 financial year to cover the bulk of the construction in that year.
This project is an important part of our broader plan to improve safety along the N2 in the vicinity of the airport.
You will recall that in October last year we launched a unit of 45 Metro Police Officers dedicated to patrolling the N2, along with the airport and Borcherd’s Quarry precincts. This was part of the over 800 new City Police Officers deployed across the metro, including dedicated neighbourhood policing in every ward.
These N2 officers are backed up by an extensive network of CCTV cameras, including sophisticated devices with automatic number plate recognition – an investment that I am pleased to tell you is paying off in a big way.
Between September 2024 and the 11th of this month, our City officers assisted 2895 motorists along the N2, between Langa and Firgrove, with issues that range from mechanical breakdowns and flat tyres – the overwhelming majority of the incidents – to isolated attacks on motorists.
More than a thousand of these incidents were detected by CCTV operators, who then dispatched help.
The point I’m making is that safety along the N2 requires a multi-pronged response, and all our investments, from dedicated patrols to safety technology, combine to make this corridor safer.
Madam Speaker,
Another exciting project that receives attention and a shifting of funds in today’s Adjustment Budget is the redevelopment of the Strandfontein Pavilion on Baden Powell Drive on the False Bay coast.
This was one of Cape Town’s most iconic public places and is still a very well-visited place, because it is also the largest tidal pool in entire Southern Hemisphere.
When I was elected, I visited residents in Mitchells Plain who told me moving stories of how they used to visit the Strandfontein Pavilion, and I was determined that this wonderful place must be restored, rebuilt and improved so that many more people can enjoy it again.
So it gives me great pleasure to announce that not only is its refurbishment plan steaming ahead, we are in fact ahead of schedule, which is why we’ve had to bring funds forward in today’s Adjustment Budget.
In total, the project receives an additional R11.3m in this financial year to allow for work to proceed faster there.
We had a very successful public participation process about a year ago, with some great inputs from the community – which have been incorporated in the final design.
We also did what’s called a “cultural mapping process”, where people’s stories and memories of the place were captured and then used by the design team to help make the redevelopment inclusive and representative of the heritage and identity of the community.
We are now very close to breaking ground on the construction work, and we cannot wait to complete this new-look Strandfontein Pavillion, and see it bring so much joy to thousands of Capetonian families.
Colleagues,
Further highlights from this Adjustment Budget include a very welcome R401m injection from the National Treasury in recognition of the progress we have made in the Metro Trading Services Reform.
You will recall that when we made the various budget reforms last year in order to make our trading services sustainable for Water, Sanitation, Electricity and Waste, one of the motivations was to qualify for additional grant funding from National Treasury.
Well, this R400m is the first tranche of what we were talking about, and will be allocated to various projects.
Councillors,
We are also increasing investment in upgrading stormwater infrastructure in communities often hardest hit by winter flooding.
These are often relatively small projects compared our other giant projects, but they make a big difference to people’s dignity during the wet winters.
A new stormwater project recently completed in Samora Machel has meant several blocks and hundreds of informal homes were dry last winter, many for the first time.
These projects are difficult to do, but we must do more of them, and we are budgeting for that.
This budget includes R57m for additional stormwater projects in communities hardest hit by winter flooding.
We would like to increase this budget allocation significantly in the years ahead, and we will have some more to report on this in the main budget in March.
Colleagues,
Over the last few years we’ve pursued a deliberate funding strategy of increasing investment in public sport and recreation facilities, to bring them up to the standard we expect.
Every single resident, no matter where they live in our city, deserves sport and recreation facilities that reflect our city’s commitment to care and excellence.
This investment strategy continues today. Our public swimming pools receive an additional R46m over the next three years for upgrades. These pools are a vital part of Capetonians’ lives, particularly if you live in small, crowded homes, council flats, or shacks and have few other options for outdoor space.
It was a joy to visit many of these pools this season and swim with the thousands of Capetonians enjoying the cool water together.
It was also a joy to visit Blue Downs indoor pool this week, after its upgrade was recently completed, and to hear that a massive 40 000 people used the pool this festive season.
Wow! It’s wonderful to hear our residents are finding such enjoyment in the many revamped and upgraded facilities around the city.
Also this week I visited the newly revamped Blue Downs stadium, which is simply beautiful. Again, it was a joy to hear how crowded the track is every evening after work, as residents of Blue Downs and Mfuleni use it as a safe exercise space.
While I was there I also met a military veteran, a retired Sergeant Major Slamat from the SA Army, who is there at 06h30 every morning to run laps around the track, and who told me how thrilled he was with the beautiful new facility.
We thank Sergeant Major Slamat for his service to our country, and we are proud to deliver facilities of such excellence to upstanding citizens like him.
Community Services and Health directorate receive an additional R30m for the maintenance and upgrade of our public facilities.
We’ve also made some important adjustments to our Safety and Security budget. The biggest of these, at R45m, is for the setting up of our new Joint Policing Centre in Parow.
This is to become the new expanded “nerve centre” for our safety coordination, and will include space for SAPS to work alongside our officers together with various other agencies in a high-tech, integrated environment.
We’ve also allocated an additional R16m to increase the number of vehicles for our Neighbourhood Safety Officers.
The final allocation I’d like to mention is an additional R5m to help early-childhood development centres by covering the costs they would ordinarily have to pay to the city to build on or get approval.
This is part of our ongoing work to make it simpler and cheaper to run an ECD in Cape Town, particular in poorer communities. It is mainly women who run ECDs in poorer communities, and we know the essential work these women do to help raise and educate our children, and we want to make it easier for them to do so.
Colleagues,
These are just some of the highlights in this longer document. Every single one of these line items matters.
Each one matters significantly to a particular community, but all of them matter, collectively, for the progress of our city and the fulfilment of our goal to build a city of hope.
What we’re trying to achieve here is more than just build a city of prosperity and care for Capetonians. We also want to show South Africa that success in our country is still possible, and that we don’t have to settle for disappointment and disillusionment.
The line-items in this adjustment budget represent our investment in the future of this great city, and they also point to the incredible progress we’ve made on this journey so far.
As we embark on the final year of this term of office, let us also remember how far we’ve come in the previous four.
You can rightly feel proud of our milestones, and of the progress we’ve made to improving services, fixing problems, and building a fairer, more dignified city for all.
Thank you.
Published by:
City of Cape Town, Media Office
