'Budget Speech crucial for Cape Town affordable housing crisis' - Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis

Lester Kiewit is joined on Good Morning Cape Town by Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis.

Listen below:

As Cape Town continues to grapple with its growing housing crisis, the spotlight is on Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana's Budget Speech on Wednesday.

Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis says the minister's speech will play a crucial role in shaping the future of housing for many Capetonians.

He says the budget holds the key to unlocking affordable housing across the city.

Hill-Lewis has called for no cuts to pro-poor grant funding to municipalities and provinces.

He's also asked for greater support from the government to provide low-cost, inner-city housing.

"We've seen Treasury nipping and tucking everywhere and that includes the grants that we use to deliver essential services to subsidise some of the free services that we have to render."

- Geordin Hill-Lewis, Mayor – City of Cape Town

He says there have been big cuts to housing grants.

"But also some cuts to grants for informal settlement upgrading for free basic services."

- Geordin Hill-Lewis, Mayor – City of Cape Town

Hill-Lewis says while the finance minister has the unenviable task of making some 'impossible sums balance', grants that provide funds for services for the poorest of the poor must somehow be protected.

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Several affordable housing projects are in the pipeline for Cape Town, says Hill-Lewis.

Funding confirmation has been received for three of them, he says, but government support is essential to see the projects through to completion:

"So we're putting quite a lot of effort into this, getting land released...we are really trying to make these things work, but they cannot work without state subsidy."

- Geordin Hill-Lewis, Mayor – City of Cape Town

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