Speech by Executive Mayor, Alderman Patricia de Lille,
at the unveiling of the flats upgraded in the Kewtown
CRU Project on 30 November 2011
Honoured guests,
Ladies and gentlemen,
Good morning, goeiedag, molweni.
The City of Cape Town is committed to becoming more inclusive and more
caring.
We want to build a city where everyone feels at home and knows that
they have a stake in the future.
This city is our home and it belongs to all of us.
In trying to fulfil our mission, we are faced with a number of challenges.
Many of these issues revolve around housing delivery and social issues
which, when combined, often leave people without the full potential to
make use of opportunities the city provides.
We must look at the core framework that informs what creates those
opportunities.
We need to ask ourselves what basic foundation we can give people to
enable them to lead better lives and help both themselves and their
families.
In looking for the answers to these questions, we know that we face
constraints.
We know that we cannot always provide everything to people all of the
time.
As such, we must be smart with our investments.
Perhaps the smartest investment we can make is in our communities.
Communities allow people to come together and thrive; they give people
a sense of belonging and a safe environment in which they can raise
families.
Communities are the bricks of this great city we are building.
The Community Residential Upgrade (CRU) project shares this philosophy.
A national programme, it has within its vision the upgrade of housing
units across the country, implemented by municipalities.
I am pleased that, once again, Cape Town has emerged as a national
leader in delivery.
City rental units in this project across various communities from around
the metro were identified for this programme.
Kewtown was one of the identified communities.
As we stand here today, the Kewtown project is the first CRU project to
be completed nationally and a total of 320 units have been upgraded.
Having been launched last year, it has involved substantial investment of
financial and human resources.
That investment has paid off.
The upgrade to units in Kewtown includes general renovations to
buildings, roofs, electrical and plumbing systems and the installation of
new ceilings, floor coverings, cupboards and geysers, fencing, refuse
management, area lighting, greening of areas and recreational facilities.
The work on all of these upgrades was done with numerous stakeholders,
not least the community itself.
Basic labour saw people from the area hired through the Expanded Public
Works Programme (EPWP) and skills training to participants.
Furthermore, community members have been involved in the planning
process from the outset and they have played an especially important role
in ensuring the project reached the final stage.
This project has thus seen numerous strategies of our government at
work, including local economic development through skills development
and most crucially broad-based engagement with partners.
Because of our ability to work with one another, the residents of Kewtown
will be able to enjoy a revitalised community and homes of which they
can be proud.
This is not a once-off success story.
While we celebrate today, we must always challenge ourselves to improve
on our own record of delivery.
The Kewtown project is the first to be completed.
There will be others in other parts of the metro over the coming years.
And through it all, we will be working with people to improve their homes.
Ultimately, though, we will be improving this city that we all call home.