Today, 15 August 2017, the City of Cape Town is pleased to announce that we have switched on electricity in the first part of the fire-affected area in Madiba Square, Imizamo Yethu.

On 11 July, following a meeting with the community leadership, we announced that electricity would be switched on in the first section by 10 August 2017.

This project has taken three months to complete, of which 15 days was lost due to unrest in the area. I am, however, pleased that we were able to switch on electricity today, a few days after the initial timeline.

The City’s teams and contractors are working around the clock to ensure that we install services as part of the super-blocking process as soon as possible and that we catch up on work which was delayed by violent protests a few weeks ago.

I thank the community for their patience and assure them that we will continue doing all we can to proceed with all plans as quickly as possible.

The electrification programme is currently on schedule for installations and reinstallations to the affected residents.

In Madiba Square, a total budget of R6,75 million has been spent for the electrification of 181 dwellings, of which 14% are new connections and the remainder of the households are a reinstatement of connections for customers electrified before the fire.

Once the entire area has been electrified, the project will result in the electrification of more than 2 100 households, of which more than 80% will be new connections at a cost of R40 million.

The City is currently busy with a broad range of works in Imizamo Yethu as part of the super-blocking project to deliver services such as water, sanitation, electricity, wider pathways and roads in the fire-affected area.

The super-blocking project will enhance service delivery in the area and lead to greater access in order to help prevent a recurrence of the devastating fire which occurred in March this year.

Following the fire, the City immediately embarked on planning for the super-blocking project – a new initiative in the City of Cape Town to provide better services in areas where density and other restrictive conditions do not allow for the provision of individual serviced sites.

The super-blocking provides for blocks separated by roads and pedestrian corridors with electrification of individual structures and communal taps and toilets provided per block.

Road access, electrification, fire-breaks and fire hydrants are expected to significantly reduce fire risks.

This is in line with the City’s Organisational Development and Transformation Plan (ODTP) goals to be a responsive, proactive and customer-centric organisation and to work much more closely with communities in order to enhance service delivery.

In terms of the electrification programme, the City is working to achieve the following key milestones:

• Electrification of Madiba Square has been completed in August 2017
• Electrification of Pipe Track below Road 5 will start in the next two weeks for completion within the next three months
• Electrification of Shooting Range will start as soon as enough progress has been made by the civil contractor doing roadworks and walkways
• Dontse Yakhe will start when there is sufficient progress with the construction of Road 1 and the walkways

The community leaders are being updated regularly on the plan and remain on board as they have said that this is the type of consolidated plan they had been asking for.

This past weekend the City also held an intensive two-day workshop at the Cape Town Civic Centre with community stakeholders from Imizamo Yethu and the broader Hout Bay community where City officials from various departments updated attendees on the super-blocking plan and progress.

The workshop dealt with the scope of works and all deliverables, with substantive input received from the community.

I would like to reiterate our commitment to working with all community leaders and residents to ensure that we continue getting on with the work of service delivery and making progress possible together for the sake of all the fire-affected residents in Imizamo Yethu.

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