The German government has provided €7,5-million (about R60-million) in funding for development in Cape Town’s poverty-stricken Khayelitsha township for social development purposes. This money is to be matched rand-for-rand by South Africa.
This was announced by Cape Town mayor Nomaindia Mfeketo through the government news agency, BuaNews, on Monday.
The money will be channelled through the German Kfw Bank and will be focused on a pilot urban renewal project in what the news agency described as the Mother City’s “crime-ridden area”.
BuaNews said in addition to the German funding, the Cape Town city council, Western Cape provincial government and the national South African government will match the fund.
Khayelitsha was named one of President Thabo Mbeki’s urban renewal zones in 2001.
The funds will be used for the building of new facilities, including ones to boost economic opportunities.
“We will not waste money by building facilities where there are facilities. In some areas we have community facilities, in such cases we will upgrade them to be suitable or to be used as multipurpose centres where there are none,” Mfeketo was reported by BuaNews as saying.
The mayor said the city council will put emphasis on creating an environment where people can interact.
“It is [about] creating open space, pedestrian places and parks, areas where communities can come together and chat,” she said.
Khayelitsha houses more than 50% of the city’s unemployed and a third of Capetonians.
Kfw Bank director in South Africa Michael Fischer was reported as saying that the social development fund will assist the community to receive funding for small business investments.
“There will be a fund management that will be closely monitored. The funds will be used for the most deprived people in Khayelitsha,” Fischer said. — I-Net Bridge