Langa lives and services prioritised: Tower 37 emergency relocation successfully completed
15 May 2025
STATEMENT BY THE CITY’S MAYORAL COMMITTEE MEMBER FOR HUMAN SETTLEMENTS, COUNCILLOR CARL POPHAIM
The City’s Human Settlements Directorate has successfully completed the emergency relocation operation near the severely damaged and vandalised Eskom Tower 37 electricity pylon in Langa
The vulnerable Langa residents understood the urgency of the situation and offered their cooperation, which led to them being safely moved to the vacant piece of City-owned land not far away from the Tower 37 site in order to ensure we avoid a disaster.
A large inter-departmental City team comprised of Human Settlements, Public Participation, Electricity, Water and Sanitation, Safety and Security, and external partners such as our contractors, Eskom National Transmission Company of South Africa (NTCSA) and the South African Police Service (SAPS) were hard at work to ensure the best possible outcome.
After the Tower 37 site was successfully cleared and the affected residents were relocated to the safer site, Eskom NTCSA signed to formally take over the Tower 37 site, specifically the land servitude, to complete the repairs and maintenance to its electricity pylon infrastructure.
This has been the most important life-saving and disaster mitigating intervention our City has undertaken this year. We can now ensure the immediate safety of the affected families; prevent a large-scale electricity outage for all of Langa as well as the southern districts of the metro and avoid fatal casualties. The City has worked hard to help Eskom in this humanitarian operation where time has been of the essence.
I recognise that this has not been an easy process to undertake. Outside of the disaster risk, stakeholders have opposed this relocation and raised certain concerns. My directorate and I have committed to addressing the substantive concerns at our cost and using the City owned land in a strategic manner.
Our teams are now ensuring the installation of a safety fence around the relocation site to mitigate safety concerns from stakeholders and will undertake site preparation to allow usage on the City owned property for a safely fenced sports field at the cost of the City. This area will be for the exclusive use of the abutting schools.
The City’s Informal Settlement Engineering Services as well as Informal Settlement Management teams have worked tirelessly over recent weeks to ensure that the site is prepared, foundations and structures are built, and basic services are installed ahead of the relocation. All work on site has now been completed and the 46 families can focus on adjusting their lives.
We thank the residents for their support and cooperation in this humanitarian move. The relocation site will be monitored to ensure safety of residents and Eskom will secure and rehabilitate their site moving forward in consultation with the City’s Energy Directorate.
End
Published by:
City of Cape Town, Media Office
