The City of Cape Town’s Imizamo Yethu redevelopment programme is under way and progressing well. On 16 August 2021, City officials, including Mayoral Committee Member for Human Settlements, Councillor Malusi Booi, and Executive Director for Human Settlements, Nolwandle Gqiba, visited some of the families who were affected by a fire, which ravaged informal structures in the area this weekend.
The fire in the early hours of Sunday, 15 August 2021, razed 61 structures and partially damaged one other. The City’s Imizamo Yethu redevelopment project has been under way for some time and once completed could help to mitigate the impact of fires to the area due to enhanced access for emergency services.
“Blankets, mattresses and meals have been provided to the verified beneficiaries who were affected by the fire by SASSA and Gift of the Givers. Every instance of fire is assessed and a specific approach is developed as all instances will have unique circumstances. The City enables and facilitates soft relief, such as donations, site clearing, verification and assessments for assistance,” Councillor Malusi Booi said as he thanked the City’s teams from various departments for putting in hard work to provide assistance to those who have been affected.
“As per what the City has been communicating, until recently, the City almost immediately and automatically provided relief kits to residents in informal settlements and some backyarders affected by fires, outside of a declared national disaster,” he added.
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The City until recently was the only metro in South Africa to provide enhanced fire kits to fire-affected residents as an additional service, outside of formal declared disasters. This was subject to funding and in particular grant funding from the National Government. Changes to the funding have impacted on operations. The National Government has since stopped the utilisation of this HSDG grant for responding with fire kits across the country and this is impacting on all City operations.
“Traditionally, we did so to enhance turnaround times and offer assistance where we could. We continue to look at all options and we are still providing assistance where we can,” said Councillor Booi.
After the large fire in 2017, the City planned to introduce a so called superblock configuration with proper road access and designated areas where fire hydrants would be installed, among other services. The City moved with great speed to bring relief to residents. Unfortunately, some of the community leaders and groupings in the larger community did not agree to this approach and opposed us in court. These planned roads would have been completed by now if we were allowed to proceed with the upgrading plans and innovative super blocking initiative. This would have helped to prevent exactly these conditions when fires break out.
There is currently only one access road through Imizamo Yethu and timeous access is very challenging for the City’s emergency and basic services due to congestion on the road.
Bulk earthworks for the formal housing project have been completed and the retaining walls constructed. Community engagement is an important component of this project and is underway.
“We will continue to engage with the community throughout this process. This project, as with all City projects, is dependent on community support and cooperation. We thank the communities for their patience and for working with the City over the years to ensure that this project becomes a reality,’ said Councillor Booi.
