The City of Cape Town Council has rejected a proposal calling for the establishment of a dedicated municipal fund to provide disaster relief to residents of informal settlements affected by fires and floods.
The motion, tabled by the GOOD Party during a virtual council meeting on Thursday, was debated alongside budget adjustment items before ultimately being voted down by the majority of councillors.
GOOD Party Councillor Axolile Notywala argued that the city needed to set aside its own funding mechanism to respond more effectively to recurring disasters in informal settlements, particularly those that do not meet the threshold for a formal disaster declaration.
He said smaller-scale fires and floods often leave hundreds of residents displaced but without access to national or provincial disaster funding.
“When a fire or flood happens, the municipality does an assessment and sends that information to provincial and national government, then it is analysed, then if it is deemed to be of a large enough scale, funds will be released.
“But this is mostly for disasters that affect thousands of people. When there are 100 or 200 people affected, those disasters are not declared. Therefore, people don’t get the support that they are supposed to get from the municipality,” Notywala said.
He maintained that existing legislation, including the Disaster Management Act and the Municipal Finance Management Act, requires municipalities to plan and budget for disasters and not rely solely on national intervention.
The proposal received support from opposition parties including Al Jama-ah, the EFF, and the ANC, which agreed that the city should strengthen its own disaster-response capacity to address the realities faced by informal settlement residents.
However, the DA opposed the motion, warning that it would place an unsustainable financial burden on the city and undermine established intergovernmental funding arrangements.
DA Ward 76 councillor Avron Plaatjies said that while the suffering caused by fires and floods was undeniable, policy decisions needed to be guided by law and fiscal responsibility.
He cautioned that the proposal would require the city to allocate between R300 million and R400 million annually, without clarity on how the funds would be sustained.
“The human cost of fires and floods in informal settlements is real and deeply felt. However, grieving with residents and legislating based on instinct are not the same thing. We cannot support policies that allow unsafe land occupation, then turn around and complain that the results of fire and floods creating suffering and demand the city to simply write the blank check to fix it.”
Plaatjies further argued that disaster response should not be separated from broader issues, such as land-use planning, enforcement of safety regulations, and disaster-risk reduction.
He said that responding only after disasters occur, without addressing unsafe settlement patterns, would not provide long-term solutions.
The DA also pointed to recent relief efforts undertaken by the city, noting that Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis and Mayoral Committee Member for Human Settlements Carl Pophaim had visited affected areas following major fires and worked with humanitarian organisations, including Gift of the Givers, to provide emergency assistance such as food parcels, blankets, and basic supplies.
Another key item on the agenda was the DA’s proposal for the construction of a wall along the N2, which was approved.
