We can’t allow our economy to be stalled any longer – Cape Town mayor

The City of Cape Town says it has developed a dynamic economic and social recovery plan post Covid-19 lockdown.

In a statement on Monday, mayor Dan Plato said the metro continued to adjust its economic impact modelling and scenarios, and working closely with small and big business to minimise the loss of employment.

“We will continue to prioritise the safety of our residents, while responsibly calling for the opening up of our economy because we simply cannot allow our economy to be stalled any longer.

“All of this forms part of the Dynamic Operating Framework that was rapidly developed and adopted during the early days of the lockdown, and continues to be tweaked as new data becomes available,” Plato said.

The City also assured residents it was doing all it could to ensure that service delivery was taking place.

The City said it had provided personal protective equipment (PPE) to its workers at the frontline of service delivery to residents.

PPEs had also been distributed to residents.

Local clinics had been equipped and capacitated in order to perform Covid-19 screening and testing.

Plato said the City had also worked with the Western Cape government in setting up quarantine and isolation facilities.

Water

“We have had to put measures in place to ensure that our services limit the spread of the virus. For instance, all our MyCiTi stations and other public transport interchanges are sanitised several times a week. We have intensified the cleaning protocols for MyCiTi and at minibus-taxi facilities around Cape Town since the start of the lockdown.”

The City also installed 93 water tanks in informal settlements, each with a capacity of 2,700 litres, in order to enhance access to water as part of the mitigation action plan against the virus.

Plato said more than 25.7 million litres of water was delivered by trucks to the informal settlements.

“Over and above the administration’s efforts, our councillors have agreed to reprioritise funds originally earmarked for community development initiatives in their ward allocation budgets, to provide emergency food relief.

“This will greatly supplement our existing efforts to support and equip soup kitchens throughout the metro to provide a warm meal to thousands of residents in need,” said Plato.

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