Author: Marlene Nqumse

5 August 2020

It’s estimated that over the past 15 months, it cost the Western Cape Department of Human Settlements approximately R187 million to prevent illegal land grabs and site invasions.  In addition, this past month alone, the Department has spent R18 Million to prevent illegal occupation of our housing units and vacant land earmarked for human settlement development.

These amounts, which excludes legal costs, as it has not yet not been determined, translates into an estimated 1 168 housing opportunities missed.

Minister Simmers said: “Spending this exorbitant amount on securing our land and sites is unnecessary and quite frankly avoidable. In this day and age, we should not be coerced into utilising such expensive and extremes measures to protect state assets and resources, particularly since they’re earmarked to benefit the most vulnerable and deserving in our society.

It is despicable that we have so-called ‘community leaders’ engaging in such criminal activity by damaging and destroying property. They and all of their followers have taken a conscious decision to embark in this lawlessness and therefore I am appealing to all our Law Enforcement agencies that the full might of the law must take its course.

Our call is still for the South African Police Services (SAPS) to immediately and without fear or favour arrest those who are leading these illegal activities. We are all required to adhere to all the laws of the country and examples should especially be made of those are blatantly disregarding the laws of the country.

We cannot allow lawlessness to take hold in the Western Cape.  Instead, we encourage all those with a genuine housing need to immediately register on the housing demand database. If they’ve already done so, the onus is on them to ensure that their details are verified and up to date.

Furthermore, I wish to make a humble plea to our residents to utilise existing stakeholder platforms and community structures to constructively address their concerns and needs.

Tomorrow, the Provincial Cabinet will be discussing a proposal, which consists of various elements that will seek to address the current situation that we have in our province.

As the Western Cape Government, we remain committed to accelerating human settlement delivery, while promoting social inclusion through the development of integrated, resilient, safe and sustainable human settlements in an open opportunity society.

 Media Enquiries:

Marcellino Martin

Spokesperson for Minister Tertuis Simmers

Marcellino.martin@westerncape.gov.za

021 483 3397 (o) / 082 721 3362 (m)

Or

Nathan Adriaanse

Director Communication & Stakeholder Relations

Tell: 021 483 2868 / Mobile: 083 2631720 / Email: Nathan.Adriaanse@westerncape.gov.za

5 August 2020

As of 1pm on 5 August, the Western Cape has 9652 active cases of COVID-19, with a total of 96 446 confirmed cases and 83 529 recoveries.

Cape Metro Sub-districts:

Sub-districts:

Unallocated: 5525 (4837 recovered)

Data note: It is not always possible to check and verify that the address data supplied for each new recorded case is correct, within the time frames required to provide regular and timely updates. This means that in some instances, cases could be allocated to the wrong sub-districts. We are working with the sub-districts to clean and verify the data and where errors are picked up locally, cases will be re-allocated to the correct areas.

More data is available here: https://coronavirus.westerncape.gov.za/covid-19-dashboard

The Western Cape has recorded an additional 29 deaths, bringing the total number of COVID-19 related deaths in the province to 3265.  We send our condolences to the loved ones of all the deceased at this time.

Stellenbosch testing and triage centre opens:

Today, Health Minister Nomafrench Mbombo opened the new testing and triage centre in Stellenbosch. This is one of 26 of these facilities which have already been completed across the province, with others still under construction. These centres allow hospitals to separate testing and triage from their other healthcare activities. While the province has seen a decline in the number of new cases in certain areas, these centres will still be play an important role in testing in the coming months as we expect the virus to be around for many more months.

Minister Mbombo also visited Kayamandi for a community activation aimed at sharing information with community members to help slow the spread.

In addition to the testing centre, work on the first phase of of the Sonstraal hospital in Paarl is well under way, with the first 63 additional beds due to come online on 10 August

The Cape Winelands District Municipality has recorded a total of 10984 infections and 9526 recoveries-a recovery rate of over 85%.

I am also pleased to see the increased uptake in the use of quarantine and isolation facilities in the Cape Winelands district over the past few weeks-almost doubling from 29% to 57%. These facilities are an important tool in slowing the spread, creating a safe and comfortable space for people who have tested positive for COVID-19 to isolate or for those who are direct contacts of a positive case, to quarantine. These facilities are especially important if you share your home with anyone who might be high risk- such as an elderly parent, or a loved one with an underlying illness.

I call on all residents in this region to work with us to ensure that we are able to slow the spread, save more lives and ensure that we do not have a second wave of infections.

The Cape Winelands is an important farming region in the Western Cape, contributing significantly to our economy, to job creation and to food security in the province. We therefore encourage all businesses to take the necessary precautions to ensure that their staff are kept safe. Slowing the spread of this virus will also allow for more areas of our economy to open up, so that we can avoid the second unemployment pandemic.

Further information on the historical deaths reported yesterday:

Yesterday, the Western Cape reported 93 additional deaths- with the majority of these being historical deaths which have now been correctly allocated as COVID-19 deaths. These deaths did not occur in hospitals, and as such, our Department of Health may not have picked up a COVID-19 positive result.

These deaths were recorded as follows:

4 deaths in May

33 deaths in June

16 deaths in July

and 8 deaths in August.

The Western Cape has been working closely with the NICD, using sophisticated, integrated systems to cross reference excess reported deaths to determine if they are COVID-19 related in order to ensure that our records are as accurate as possible. As we continue with these processes, we will continue to keep residents informed.

MEDIA RELEASE BY DAVID MAYNIER

WESTERN CAPE MINISTER OF FINANCE AND ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITIES

Date: 04 August 2020

Release: immediately

Improved operations at the Port of Cape Town welcomed

The efficient and effective performance of the Port of Cape Town is critical to economic recovery and growth for the Western Cape however, ongoing operational challenges have resulted in poor service levels that are impacting our economy in the Western Cape.

The Covid-19 pandemic has further aggravated the situation to such a degree that three major shipping lines cancelled calls to Cape Town or implemented a Cape Town congestion surcharge.

This required urgent action and interventions, and I am pleased to confirm that through ongoing engagements between ourselves and the Transnet Port Terminals management, and considerable effort by all stakeholders in the port logistics chain, we have in recent weeks seen some welcome developments.

Mr. Velile Dube was appointed as the new CEO of Transnet Port Terminals, a crew of 20 staff members were brought in from the Port of Durban to temporarily assist and the Port of Cape Town received four new straddle cranes.

While the additional staff returned to the Port of Durban last week, there has been a consistent effort to contain Covid-19 infections and, with the assistance of the provincial Department of Health and the Department of Economic Development and Tourism, this has enabled a number of key personnel to return to work maintaining the six-gang operation. And plans to introduce a seventh gang are underway.

The result is that:

• the average container moves per day has increased from 533 in the week of 25 May, to 1 179 last week; and
• the period for berthing of vessels at anchor has reduced from 20 days to 1 day.

On Friday (31 July 2020) a vessel docked after waiting only one day, and yesterday a vessel berthed on the day of arrival. This is a significant improvement, and if this performance is sustained during next week and beyond, would mean that the shipping lines could possibly re-install calls to the Port of Cape Town by the second week of August.

There is still much work to be done. And so, in addition to our existing efforts, the Department of Economic Development and Tourism have recently approved a project to integrate data from all fruit packhouses in the Western Cape into a decision-support tool that identifies the best days, times and routes for optimal delivery of containers for export in order to ease congestion in the container terminal.

And through the department’s Red Tape Reduction Unit, we will continue to investigate additional interventions to reduce the cost of doing business in the Port of Cape Town.

Furthermore, I look forward to engaging with the Minister of Public Enterprises, Pravin Gordhan, and the Transnet management team to implement the permanent structural changes needed to make the Port of Cape Town a globally competitive port.

Notes for media:
Please find soundbyte from Minister David Maynier attached

To read the statement online visit: https://www.westerncape.gov.za/news/improved-operations-port-cape-town-welcomed

Media Queries:

Francine Higham

Spokesperson for the Provincial Minister of Finance and Economic Opportunities

(Responsible for the Provincial Treasury and the Department of Economic Development and Tourism)

Tel: 021 483 4327 / Cell: 071 087 5150

Email: francine.higham@westerncape.gov.za

If you do not want to receive future media releases from Minister David Maynier then please reply directly to this email requesting to be removed from our mailing list.

JOINT STATEMENT BY TERTUIS SIMMERS

WESTERN CAPE MINISTER OF HUMAN SETTLEMENTS, ALBERT FRITZ

WESTERN CAPE MINISTER OF COMMUNITY SAFETY &

ANTON BREDELL

WESTERN CAPE MINISTER OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT & ENVIRONMENTAL PLANNING

ARREST LEADERS OF LAND INVASIONS

3 August 2020

The South African Police Services (SAPS), with the assistance of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) and all relevant Law Enforcement Agencies should immediately arrest all those who are leading the illegal land grabs that we’re currently seeing across the Western Cape.

Minister Simmers said: “It has become clear that those who are complicit and involved in these illegal events only have criminal intentions. This past weekend’s illegal invasion and subsequent damage caused at the Kraaifontein racing track is an example of this.

Between April and July this year, the City of Cape Town’s Law Enforcement had to respond to 260 incidents of illegal land invasions.

I’ve already engaged my cabinet colleagues, particularly the Ministers of Community Safety and Local Government, Albert Fritz and Anton Bredell, respectively, about what is currently plaguing the province, and more so the City of Cape Town.

We’ll have further discussions this week with the rest of the cabinet and the City of Cape Town, as it is critical that measures be found that will assist to swiftly address these issues.

In the meanwhile, SAPS must demonstrate to this province’s citizens that they will not allow these illegal acts to continue. They have a duty and more so now under the current regulations to uphold and enforce the laws of the country.

I trust our courts will take swift action against those charged. Our Courts are critical in this pipeline, as there’s an unfortunate perception that those involved in these illegal land grabs and destruction of property tends to only get a slap on the wrist, after appearing in Court.”

Minister Fritz said, “The Department of Community Safety will provide the necessary facilitation and coordination between SAPS in the Western Cape and the City of Cape Town’s law enforcement and Metro Police to address the spate of land invasions taking place in the province. The land invasions taking placing are highly coordinated and sophisticated in their execution, having already occupied large plots of land in areas such as Wallacedene, Bloekombos and Khayelitsha. In many cases the land being occupied is already designated for services aimed at developing the communities and therefore undermines the community in which it takes place.”

Minister Fritz continued, “I condemn the violent protest action surrounding many of the land invasions in the strongest terms. It is completely unacceptable that infrastructure such as roads and arterials are being damaged by tire burning and that the safety and wellbeing of residents is further being infringed on by the stone throwing, petrol bombs and other violent and dangerous behaviour. Tomorrow, I will be meeting with National Police Commissioner, Lieutenant General Khehla Sitole on the spate of land invasion and violent protest action in the Western Cape.”

Minister Anton Bredell said: “Various municipal areas across the province, in particular the City of Cape Town, are currently under huge strain from repeated attempts to invade land earmarked for housing projects, community basic services, nature conservation land or play parks for communities. This is impacting ongoing projects, service delivery and existing community facilities to the detriment of the existing communities.

In the City of Cape Town alone, more than R1,3 billion of housing projects are currently under threat from land invasions. Law enforcement actions to prevent the illegal occupations have been met in some areas with extreme violence and destruction of property and the breaking down of community facilities.

Our communities deserve to be protected and these illegal actions cannot be tolerated. The rule of law needs to be respected and enforced and the South African Police Services must step up and apply the law to serve their communities.”

Simmers added: “I urge all communities to also take a stand against these lawless activities and assist the law enforcement agencies by reporting all those and particularly the leaders who are involved in these incidents.

As the Western Cape Government, we remain committed to accelerating human settlement delivery, while promoting social inclusion through the development of integrated, resilient, safe and sustainable human settlements in an open opportunity society.”

Media Enquiries:

Marcellino Martin

Spokesperson for Minister Tertuis Simmers

Marcellino.martin@westerncape.gov.za

021 483 3397 (o) / 082 721 3362 (m),

Nathan Adriaanse

Director Communication & Stakeholder Relations

Tell: 021 483 2868 / Mobile: 083 2631720

Email: Nathan.Adriaanse@westerncape.gov.za

Cayla Ann Tomás Murray

Spokesperson for Minister Albert Fritz

Tel: 021 483 9217 / Cell: 064 121 7959 / Email: Cayla.murray@westerncape.gov.za   _­