Build One South Africa (BOSA) Cape Town Mayoral Candidate, Roger Solomons, calls for the immediate implementation of the Public Protector’s remedial action following the damning findings that the City of Cape Town failed to meet its constitutional and legal obligations to residents of Langa Flats and Khayelitsha.
The Public Protector’s investigation confirms what many Capetonians already know: while Cape Town works for some, systemic failures continue to deny basic municipal services to many of the city’s most vulnerable communities.
These failures include inadequate sanitation, sewerage infrastructure, housing delivery, and other basic municipal services that residents are entitled to receive.
The report further found that the City failed to fulfill multiple legal and regulatory obligations in the execution of its responsibilities. This represents a pattern of neglect that has left thousands of Cape Town residents without the dignity and quality of life they deserve.
The Public Protector has rightly directed the Ministers responsible for Human Settlements and Cooperative Governance to play a stronger coordinating role to ensure that all spheres of government work together to resolve these failures.
BOSA supports the immediate implementation of these recommendations. But this report also raises an uncomfortable question about leadership in Cape Town.
A city cannot claim success while entire communities continue to live without reliable basic services. Cape Town cannot continue celebrating excellence in one part of the city while accepting persistent failure in another.
This is precisely why Cape Town cannot afford a part-time mayor. It needs a mayor with both eyes on the ball.
The City needs leadership that is relentlessly focused on every community, every day – not only those neighbourhoods where services already function well. A mayor’s responsibility extends to every resident, regardless of their postcode.
Cape Town’s reputation as South Africa’s best-run metro will only be meaningful when that standard is experienced equally by families in Khayelitsha, Langa Flats, Gugulethu, Philippi, Dunoon and every other underserved community.
BOSA believes that where government fails, it must be held accountable. The Public Protector has now done precisely that. The City must stop explaining these failures and start fixing them.
Our vision is straightforward: Cape Town must work for everyone it serves.
As Mayor, Roger Solomons will insist on measurable service delivery targets for underserved communities, transparent public reporting on progress, and stronger coordination across all spheres of government to ensure residents receive the services they have waited far too long for.
Every Capetonian deserves the same dignity, the same opportunity and the same quality of municipal service. Nothing less should be acceptable.
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