City of Cape Town

The City of Cape Town (Afrikaans: Stad Kaapstad; Xhosa: IsiXeko saseKapa) is the metropolitan municipality which governs the city of Cape Town, South Africa and its suburbs and exurbs. As of the 2011 census, it had a population of 3,740,026.

City of Cape Town Stad Kaapstad (Afrikaans) IsiXeko saseKapa (Xhosa)
Metropolitan municipality
Seal
Location in the Western Cape
Coordinates: 34°0′S 18°30′E
Country	South Africa
Province	Western Cape
Seat	Cape Town
Wards	115
Government [1]
• Type	Municipal council
• Mayor	Dan Plato (DA)
• Deputy Mayor	Ian Neilson (DA)
Area
• Total	2,445 km^2 (944 sq mi)
Population  (2011)[2]
• Total	3,740,026
• Density	1,500/km^2 (4,000/sq mi)
Racial makeup (2011) [2]
• Black African	38.6%
• Coloured	42.4%
• Indian/Asian	1.4%
• White	15.7%
First languages (2011) [2]
• Afrikaans	35.7%
• Xhosa	29.8%
• English	28.4%
• Other	6.1%
Time zone	UTC+2 (SAST)
Municipal code	CPT

The remote Prince Edward Islands are deemed to be part of the City of Cape Town, specifically of ward 55.

History

Cape Town first received local self-government in 1839, with the promulgation of a municipal ordinance by the government of the Cape Colony.[3] When it was created, the Cape Town municipality governed only the central part of the city known as the City Bowl, and as the city expanded, new suburbs became new municipalities, until by 1902 there were 10 separate municipalities in the Cape Peninsula.[4] During the 20th century, many of the suburban municipalities became unsustainable and merged into the Cape Town municipality or combined with other suburbs; but at the end of apartheid in 1994 the metropolitan area was still divided up into several separate municipalities.

As part of the post-1994 reforms, municipal government experienced a complete overhaul. In 1996 the Cape Town metropolitan area was divided into six municipalities – Cape Town/Central, Tygerberg, South Peninsula, Blaauwberg, Oostenberg and Helderberg – along with a Metropolitan Council to oversee the whole metropolitan area. At the time of the 2000 municipal elections these various structures were merged to form the City of Cape Town as a single metropolitan municipality governing the whole metropolitan area. It is for this reason that the City of Cape Town is sometimes referred to as the "Unicity".[5]

The current municipality covers Cape Point in the south-west, Somerset West in the south-east, and Atlantis in the north, and includes Robben Island.

Politics and government

Council

Seats in the city council after the 2016 election.

  DA

  ANC

  EFF

  ACDP

  Al Jama-ah

  Others

Cape Town is governed by a 231-member city council elected in a system of mixed-member proportional representation. The city is divided into 116 wards, each of which elects a councillor by first-past-the-post voting. The remaining 115 councillors are elected from party lists so that the total number of councillors for each party is proportional to the number of votes received by that party.

The makeup of the council after the 2016 election is shown in the following table.[6]

Party		Ward	PR list	Total	Percentage
	Democratic Alliance	81	73	154	66.7%
	ANC	35	22	57	24.7%
	Economic Freedom Fighters	0	7	7	3.0%
	ACDP	0	3	3	1.3%
	Al Jama-ah	0	2	2	0.9%
	African Independent Congress	0	1	1	0.4%
	Congress of the People	0	1	1	0.4%
	Cape Muslim Congress	0	1	1	0.4%
	Democratic Independent Party	0	1	1	0.4%
	Freedom Front Plus	0	1	1	0.4%
	Pan Africanist Congress	0	1	1	0.4%
	Patriotic Alliance	0	1	1	0.4%
	UDM	0	1	1	0.4%
Total		116	115	231	100.0%

The speaker of the council is Dirk Smit of the Democratic Alliance.[7]

The council is divided into 24 subcouncils which deal with local functions for between three and six wards. A subcouncil consists of the ward councillors and a similar number of proportionally-elected councillors assigned to the subcouncil.[8] A subcounil is chaired by one of the councillors and appoints a manager to run its day-to-day business. A subcouncil does not have any inherent responsibilities in law, but it is entitled to make recommendations to the City Council about anything that affects its area. The City Council may also delegate responsibilities to the subcouncils.[9]

Executive

The executive authority for the city is vested in an Executive Mayor who is elected by the council. The mayor appoints a mayoral committee whose members oversee various portfolios. A City Manager is appointed as the non-political head of the city's administration.

With the Democratic Alliance (DA) having won an absolute majority of council seats in the election of 3 August 2016, its mayoral candidate Patricia de Lille, who has served as mayor since 2011, was re-elected. She later resigned in October 2018 and the party designated Dan Plato to be their mayoral candidate to replace her. The current executive Deputy Mayor is Ian Neilson and served as Acting Mayor of Cape Town until Plato was elected.[10]

The Mayoral Committee consists of 10 members who are appointed by the Executive Mayor. Each member manages a different area of the local government. The committee of Patricia de Lille disbanded when de Lille resigned. Acting Mayor Ian Neilson managed an interim committee. Plato appointed a new committee when he was sworn-in. The structure was later revised in December 2018.

Portfolio	Councillor
Deputy Mayor and Finance	Ian Neilson
Community Services and Health	Zahid Badroodien
Corporate Services	Sharon Cottle
Economic Opportunities and Asset Management	James Vos
Energy and Climate Change	Phindile Maxiti
Human Settlements	Malusi Booi
Safety and Security	J P Smith
Spatial Planning and Environment	Marian Nieuwoudt
Transport	Felicity Purchase
Urban Management	Grant Twigg
Water and Waste	Xanthea Limberg

The current city manager is Lungelo Mbandazayo. He had been the acting city manager since the former city manager Achmat Ebrahim, who was appointed in April 2006, resigned in January 2018 amid misconduct allegations. He was formally appointed city manager in April 2018.[11]

The local municipality was one of the four to have passed the 2009-10 audit by the Auditor-General of South Africa, who deemed it to have a clean administration.[12]

Electoral history

Helen Zille, former mayor of the City of Cape Town.

The City of Cape Town Metropolitan Municipality in its present form took shape after the 2000 municipal elections. The old Central Cape Town MLC council had been governed by the New National Party (NNP), but they were losing support to the African National Congress (ANC) and the Democratic Party (DP). Fearing further losses, the NNP agreed to contest the upcoming local election in December 2000 together with the DP by forming the Democratic Alliance (DA), with DP and NNP members running as DA candidates. The DA won Cape Town with an outright majority, and Peter Marais, also a senior member of the provincial NNP, became mayor of the unicity. However, DA leader Tony Leon's attempt to remove Marais from his position in 2001 caused the disintegration of the alliance, and NNP came to ally with the ANC. Marais was replaced as mayor by Gerald Morkel, but Morkel was himself soon ousted during the October 2002 local floor crossing period after a large number of DA councillors had defected to the NNP. Nomaindia Mfeketo of the ANC became mayor supported by an ANC-NNP coalition. In 2004, after a dismal showing in the general elections that year, the NNP prepared for dissolution and merger with the ANC, and most of its councillors joined the governing party. This gave the ANC an outright majority on the council, which lasted until the next election.

In the 2006 local government election, the DA was the largest single party, ahead of the ANC, but with no party holding a majority. The new Independent Democrats (ID) led by Patricia de Lille was in third place.[13] The African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP) initiated negotiations with five other smaller parties who together formed a kingmaker block of fifteen councillors, collectively known as the Multi-Party Forum parties. Despite the ID voting with the ANC, Helen Zille of the DA was elected executive mayor on 15 March 2006 by a very narrow margin with the support of the Multi-Party Forum. Andrew Arnolds of the ACDP was elected executive deputy mayor and Jacob "Dirk" Smit of the Freedom Front Plus (FF+) was elected speaker. The initially fragile position of this new DA-led coalition, also known as the Multi-Party Government, was improved in January 2007 with the introduction of the ID following the expulsion of the small Africa Muslim Party for conspiring with the ANC. As a result of the ID's support, the coalition significantly increased its majority, resulting in a much more stable city government. The ID's Charlotte Williams became executive deputy mayor. However, she resigned just a few months later, and the post then went to Grant Haskin of the ACDP in late 2007.[14] The DA would also bolster its position through by-election victories and floor crossing defections. With the ID and DA together holding a firm council majority, several of the smaller coalition partners were dropped from the city government by the time of the 2009 general elections, including the ACDP and FF+. The DA's Ian Neilson became deputy mayor, while Dirk Smit, who had defected to the DA, retained the position of speaker. Both still hold their positions. Helen Zille left the mayorship the same year to take up the position of premier of the Western Cape, and Dan Plato became mayor.

In 2010, the DA and ID formalized an agreement in which the ID would merge into the DA by 2014. This was prompted in part by the ID's disappointing result in the 2009 general election. As per the agreement, ID ceased to exist at the local level after the 2011 municipal elections with ID members running as DA candidates. DA won a large outright majority in the election, and ID leader Patricia de Lille, who had defeated Plato in an earlier internal election, became the new mayor. The party extended its lead even further to win a two-thirds majority of the seats on the City of Cape Town council in the 2016 municipal elections, and De Lille was thus sworn in to serve a second term. It was however cut short following her resignation on 31 October 2018 after an extended battle with her party over accusations of covering up corruption, accusations she strongly denied. The previous mayor Dan Plato was chosen as her successor.

The following table shows the results of the 2016 election.[15][6]

Party		Votes				Seats
		Ward	List	Total	%	Ward	List	Total
	Democratic Alliance	831,890	832,624	1,664,514	66.6	81	73	154
	ANC	302,965	305,902	608,867	24.4	35	22	57
	Economic Freedom Fighters	40,243	38,871	79,114	3.2	0	7	7
	ACDP	16,181	14,104	30,285	1.2	0	3	3
	Al Jama-ah	9,506	6,892	16,398	0.7	0	2	2
	African Independent Congress	5,228	9,515	14,743	0.6	0	1	1
	Freedom Front Plus	5,365	4,919	10,284	0.4	0	1	1
	Democratic Independent Party	4,049	3,472	7,521	0.3	0	1	1
	Independent	7,077	–	7,077	0.3	0	–	0
	UDM	2,441	4,139	6,580	0.3	0	1	1
	Cape Muslim Congress	3,073	3,386	6,459	0.3	0	1	1
	Pan Africanist Congress	3,381	2,938	6,319	0.3	0	1	1
	Congress of the People	3,175	3,015	6,190	0.3	0	1	1
	Patriotic Alliance	2,943	2,016	4,959	0.2	0	1	1
	Others	14,156	15,552	29,708	1.2	0	0	0
Total		1,251,673	1,247,345	2,499,018	100.0	116	115	231
Spoilt votes		14,777	17,954	32,731

Demographics

Group	2001 Census	%	2011 Census	%	Change	Change in %
Coloured	1,391,859	48.12%	1,585,286	42.39%	193,427	5.73%
Black African	916,459	31.69%	1,444,939	38.63%	528,480	6.94%
White	542,435	18.75%	585,831	15.66%	43,396	3.09%
Indian or Asian	41,490	1.43%	51,786	1.38%	10,296	0.05%
Other	No Data	–	72,184	1.93%	n/a	n/a
Total population	2,892,243	100.00%	3,740,026	100.00%	847,783	29.31%

Geography

The municipality has a total area of 2455 km².[16]

Main places

The 2001 census divided the municipality into the following main places:[17]

Place	Code	Population	Most spoken language
Atlantis	17101	53,820	Afrikaans
Bellville	17102	89,732	Afrikaans
Blue Downs	17103	150,431	Afrikaans
Brackenfell	17104	78,005	Afrikaans
Brooklyn, Cape Town		10941	English
Briza	17105	1,959	English
Cape Town	17106	827,218	Afrikaans
Crossroads	17108	31,527	Xhosa
Du Noon	17109	9,045	Xhosa
Durbanville	17110	40,135	Afrikaans
Eerste River	17111	29,682	Afrikaans
Elsie's River	17112	86,685	Afrikaans
Excelsior	17113	189	Afrikaans
Fisantekraal	17114	4,646	Afrikaans
Fish Hoek	17115	15,851	English
Goodwood	17116	48,128	English
Gordons Bay	17117	2,751	Afrikaans
Guguletu	17118	80,277	Xhosa
Hottentots Holland Nature Reserve	17119	18	Xhosa
Hout Bay	17120	13,253	English
Imizamo Yethu	17121	8,063	Xhosa
Joe Slovo Park	17122	4,567	Xhosa
Khayelitsha	17123	329,002	Xhosa
Kraaifontein	17124	57,911	Afrikaans
Kuilsriver	17125	44,780	Afrikaans
Langa	17126	49,667	Xhosa
Lekkerwater	17127	1,410	Xhosa
Lwandle	17128	9,311	Xhosa
Mamre	17129	7,276	Afrikaans
Masiphumelele	17130	8,249	Xhosa
Melkbosstrand	17131	6,522	Afrikaans
Mfuleni	17132	22,883	Xhosa
Milnerton	17133	81,366	English
Mitchell's Plain	17134	398,650	Afrikaans
Nomzamo	17135	22,083	Xhosa
Noordhoek	17136	3,127	English
Nyanga	17137	58,723	Xhosa
Parow	17138	77,439	Afrikaans
Pella	17139	1,044	Afrikaans
Robben Island	17140	176	Afrikaans
Scarborough	17141	723	English
Simon's Town	17142	7,210	English
Sir Lowry's Pass Village	17143	5,766	Afrikaans
Somerset West	17144	60,606	Afrikaans
Strand	17145	46,446	Afrikaans
Witsand	17146	2,405	Xhosa
Remainder of the municipality	17107	14,498	Afrikaans

Adjacent municipalities

• Swartland Local Municipality, West Coast District Municipality (north)
• Drakenstein Local Municipality, Cape Winelands District Municipality (northeast)
• Stellenbosch Local Municipality, Cape Winelands District Municipality (northeast)
• Theewaterskloof Local Municipality, Overberg District Municipality (southeast)
• Overstrand Local Municipality, Overberg District Municipality (southeast)

The City of Cape Town is also bounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the south and west.

See also

• Biodiversity of Cape Town
• Cape Town
• Metropolitan municipality (South Africa)
• List of Cape Town suburbs
• SEDS SEDS South Africa
• Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign
• Cape Town water crisis

References

1. "Contact list: Executive Mayors". Government Communication & Information System. Archived from the original on 14 July 2010. Retrieved 22 February 2012.
2. "Statistics by place". Statistics South Africa. Retrieved 27 September 2015.
3. Worden, Nigel; van Heyningen, Elizabeth; Bickford-Smith, Vivian (1998). Cape Town: The Making of a City. Uitgeverij Verloren. pp. 171–177. ISBN 90-6550-161-4.
4. Worden, Nigel; van Heyningen, Elizabeth; Bickford-Smith, Vivian (1998). Cape Town: The Making of a City. Uitgeverij Verloren. pp. 221–223. ISBN 90-6550-161-4.
5. "City of Cape Town Metropolitan Municipality". lgbn.co.za (Local Government Business Network). Retrieved 22 March 2019.
6. "Seat Calculation Detail: Cape Town" (PDF). Independent Electoral Commission. Retrieved 22 August 2016.
7. "Executive Mayor & Mayoral Committee Membership List" (PDF). City of Cape Town. 18 January 2017. Retrieved 17 April 2017.
8. Cape Town Sub-council By-law, 2003, as amended.
9. "Subcouncils". City of Cape Town. Archived from the original on 13 June 2008. Retrieved 20 April 2008.
10. "Mayoral Committee". City of Cape Town. Retrieved 17 April 2017.
11. https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/city-of-cape-town-announces-new-city-manager-20180426
12. "Auditor-General urges South Africa's mayors to lead the drive towards clean administration by 2014". Archived from the original on 23 February 2012. Retrieved 8 August 2017.
13. "Seat Calculation Summary: City of Cape Town" (PDF). Independent Electoral Commission. 2006. Archived from the original (PDF) on 18 March 2006. Retrieved 15 March 2006.
14. "Cllr. Grant Haskin elected as deputy executive mayor". City of Cape Town. 31 October 2007. Archived from the original on 4 April 2012.
15. "Results Summary – All Ballots: Cape Town" (PDF). Independent Electoral Commission. Retrieved 22 August 2016.
16. "City of Cape Town". Municipal Demarcation Board. Retrieved 19 October 2009.
17. Lookup Tables - Statistics South Africa

External links

• City of Cape Town official website
• City of Cape Town on the Western Cape Government website