Highlights from today’s Council speech:

• As part of the annual external bursaries programme and the City’s commitment to creating an opportunity city, funding of R4,5 million has been set aside by the City to help students in need of financial assistance for the 2018 academic year
• The MyCiTi bus service achieved a record number of 219 000 passenger journeys on the four N2 Express routes between Cape Town and the Metro South-east in November 2017
• Last week we celebrated the official opening of the Cape Town International Convention Centre’s expansion, which will assist with furthering the growth of our city’s economy

I would like to call for a moment of silence for former Cape Town Mayor, Gerald Morkel; former Mayor of the Overstrand Municipality, Rudolph Smith; City firefighter Candice Kruger; brave young cancer fighter, Junaid Arendse; jazz legend Hugh Masekela; poet Keorapetse Kgosietsile; and those who lost their lives on our roads, in fires and due to drownings.

We have started this week with very sad news of the passing of one of the City’s brave firefighters, Candice Kruger. The 33-year-old served the City for nine years and was stationed at the Roeland Street Fire station. Candice passed away in hospital on Sunday after collapsing on the fire line on Table Mountain while serving in the line of duty. She received medical attention, but efforts to resuscitate her were unsuccessful. This is indeed a great loss to the City and we salute Candice for the years of brave service to the City. I would like to once again to extend our deepest sympathy on behalf of the City to her family, friends and colleagues. The City will assist the Kruger family with funeral arrangements and will also offer trauma counselling to her relatives and platoon colleagues. The City’s Fire and Rescue Service will also offer the family a full brigade funeral as Candice died while serving in the line of duty.

As usual, there are also many positive developments to report to Council in line with our commitment to continue building a caring and opportunity city.

Yesterday, I joined Mayco member for Corporate Services, Cllr Raelene Arendse and councillors from Elsies River and surrounding areas, to launch the City’s 2018 external bursaries initiative. This successful initiative sees funding being made available for bursaries for much-needed skills to close the financial gap for students pursuing a career in scarce skills disciplines. This annual project underscores the City’s commitment to creating an opportunity city as we set aside R4,5 million to help students in need of financial assistance ahead of the busy registration period for universities and FET Colleges for the 2018 academic year. These bursaries will cover costs relating to registration, examination and class fees and apply to qualifying candidates who are registered for undergraduate or postgraduate degrees or diplomas.

Yesterday we had an inspiring session with residents and potential beneficiaries in Elsies River where we encouraged them to apply for these bursaries and took them through the application process. We are indeed proud of this project, as education is the most important investment we can make in our youths and residents to ensure that they can obtain the required qualifications especially in scarce skills which are needed in a range of industries. Financial constraints often hinder people from achieving their full potential or obtaining a qualification to become economically active. As a caring city, we are aware that funding remains one of the biggest barriers to accessing tertiary education for many young South Africans. It is important we also play our part as the administration to ensure that lack of finances is not an obstacle for some.

The investment from the City for external bursaries is also in line with our efforts to address unemployment and contribute to poverty alleviation by giving residents access to these opportunities. The bursaries apply to 25 approved scarce skills fields of study which include accounting, artisan training, auditing, economics, renewable energy and medical specialists, among others.

Apart from the bursaries initiative, there are a range of projects that are bearing fruit in keeping with our commitment to deliver projects which build an opportunity city.

In the digital age, we have been working for a number of years to affirm our status as the Digital City of Africa and ensuring that we are not left behind in this ever-changing space. The City’s project to expand the fibre-optic footprint in the central business district (CBD) will fast-track communication in the digital world as it will create faster, more secure and more efficient broadband access. It will also allow the City to provide more effective services to businesses.

The CBD Connect Pilot Project is part of the City of Cape Town’s Digital City Strategy, which seeks to put digital technology to work in order to support and improve service delivery, employment and the local economy. This project is also aligned with the Integrated Development Plan (IDP) as it will contribute towards making Cape Town a safer city, will promote better management of the urban environment within the CBD, and will improve economic opportunities within the CBD. The Connect Pilot Project speaks to the key priorities of the City’s ODTP and it will ensure that the City works smarter by leveraging technology for progress and efficient service delivery. It is also about innovation and strengthening Cape Town as a forward-looking, competitive business city that can compete globally.

The CBD Connect Pilot Project entails piloting the expansion of a City-owned, open-access fibre-optic network within the Cape Town CBD. It will provide reliable broadband that will have numerous benefits. These benefits include affordable open access high-speed fibre connections to every building in the CBD and expanding economic opportunities to business and internet service providers. The pilot area will also be used as a confined urban living laboratory for the City to design and test smart device solutions such as traffic light systems, water and electricity meter management systems, CCTV camera and Wi-Fi/radio technology systems. The City’s Cape Town Metro Area Network already consists of 848 km of fibre-optic cables and 25 switching facilities. Fibre-optic cables and microwave links are used to connect 346 City buildings in areas across the city at speeds of up to 1 gigabyte per second.

Another success in the work of building an opportunity city by providing residents with access to quality public transport is the record income and passenger numbers for the MyCiTi service.

The MyCiTi bus service achieved a record number of two hundred and nineteen thousand passenger journeys on the four N2 Express routes between Cape Town and the Metro South-east in November 2017. This much-needed route was launched in 2014 and operates between the city centre, Kuyasa in Khayelitsha and Kapteinsklip in Mitchells Plain. It is indeed exciting that the during the past two years the number of passenger journeys on the four N2 Express routes has nearly doubled from just over 111 000 in November 2015. It also worth noting that up to 99% of the MyCiTi buses that operated on the N2 Express routes during the afternoon peak hour period in November 2017.

The major increase in the passenger numbers confirms that more and more commuters from the Metro South-east are relying on the MyCiTi service to get to work and school. The exceptional growth of the MyCiTi passenger numbers in Mitchells Plain and Khayelitsha coincides with the deterioration of the Metrorail Central line over the same period. The City is committed to doing all we can to assist the rail commuters from the Metro South-east by deploying more buses on the N2 Express routes as and when the passenger demand so requires.

The crippling rail service is failing commuters and workers from poorer areas on a daily basis and our N2 Express route is indeed providing much needed relief to thousands of commuters. The City’s Transport and Urban Development Authority is also hosting a rail summit next month where role-players from across the board will convene to develop temporary solutions with the intention to stabilise the ailing urban rail service and to prevent a complete collapse of the Central line.

Another key milestone is that the MyCiTi bus service generated an estimated income of just over R21,4 million from fares, advertising, events and chartered services in November 2017. This is a record income, and the highest since the inception of the MyCiTi service in May 2010. This is a major achievement, and confirmation of our commitment to providing an affordable, but sustainable, public transport service to Cape Town’s residents.

Last week we also celebrated another success with the official opening of the Cape Town International Convention Centre’s expansion. Construction of CTICC 2 commenced in 2014 and was recently completed. The facility is a collaborative project by the centre and its shareholders – the City of Cape Town, Western Cape Government and SunWest International. The new facility is set to strengthen Cape Town’s reputation as a global business events destination and marks significant progress in the CTICC’s strategy of becoming one of the top ten long-haul convention centres in the world. With greater capacity and flexibility at the venue, the centre can host even larger events and host multiple large events across both venues simultaneously.

As the majority shareholder, the CTICC 2 is a significant contributor to the City’s efforts to boost Cape Town’s reputation as a globally competitive business events destination and will enhance the socio-economic benefits the centre produces. Apart from bringing business tourism from all over the world, through its operations the centre has sustained a total of 107 000 jobs directly in the Western Cape and nationally since opening. The City holds 71.4% of the shares in the CTICC and invested R550 million in the expansion project which acted as catalyst for the continued regeneration of the inner city.

In closing, there are many more exciting developments to celebrate and these should serve as continued motivation for each of us to continue working hard to achieve excellence in service delivery. Most of all, we all need to pull together now more than ever to combat the drought and so I appeal to all councillors to get behind all water savings campaigns and get all our communities on board to avoid Day Zero.

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