‘Cape Town is SA’s City of Hope’ - Mayor Hill-Lewis delivers final Council address for the term

20 August 2026

Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis says Cape Town has become a beacon of hope for South Africa, with record infrastructure investments driving 50% of all jobs growth in metros. The Mayor was delivering his final City Council speech for the term of office.

Mayor Hill-Lewis said the last five years had seen an ‘undeniable arc of Cape Town becoming a true City of Hope for all its people’.

‘Cape Town is in a good place - still with many great challenges – but five years on, our city is a stronger, more productive, more inclusive and more caring place than when we started. 

‘Emerging from the dark winter of Covid, and with so many fellow South Africans falling into despair about our country and its prospects, we set out to show that we need not despair or give up hope. That we could still build success. And that the country dreamed of by the founders of our democracy is still possible. We wanted to prove a simple point: that progress is possible, and that problems can be solved. 

‘Our purpose was to turn Cape Town into a beacon of hope for South Africa, and here in our sandy Cape soil we have planted a flag for the very best that South Africa can be. 

‘We are only getting started. There is more to do, further to climb, higher to strive, for the summit is not yet reached,’ said Mayor Hill-Lewis. 

SA-Record infrastructure investment 

The Mayor said Cape Town has invested a South African-record R12,2bn in critical basic infrastructure in 2025/26, double the R6bn in the first year of the term, with 75% directly benefitting lower-income households based on City estimates. 

‘If there is one word that aptly describes these past five years, it is “building”, and we are doing so at a scale not seen before in South Africa, as this is needed to guarantee Cape Town’s future success. 

‘It is hard to visit a single part of the city today and not see one project or another under way, bringing better services and greater dignity to more people. These investments mean something in real, human terms: better infrastructure means better services, means more dignity for more people. 

‘That is why we have spent this term of office constructing so many aspects of the Cape Town of the future – our water and sanitation infrastructure, our bus routes, our electricity grid, our roads, and our public facilities like sports grounds, pools and libraries,’ said Mayor Hill-Lewis. 

The Mayor highlighted the City’s quadrupling of annual sewer pipe replacement to 100km annually, alongside a two-thirds reduction in pump station failures, lowering of sewer spills by a third across Cape Town over the term of office.

‘By now, we all know the records we have broken in the hundreds of kilometres of ageing sewer pipe that we replaced and upgraded across the metro. 

‘Few projects have a greater and more immediate impact on the dignity of residents, and few projects have consumed more of our government’s time, resources and effort,’ said the  Mayor. 

Cape Town drives 50% of all jobs growth in metros 

Mayor Hill-Lewis said Cape Town accounted for 50% of all jobs growth across metros over the term of office, adding 418 000 jobs out of the total 841 000 jobs growth in metros, based on StatsSA labour force data for Q1 2022 – Q2 2026.  

‘It is so encouraging to see the jobs results over the full term of office. This is the strongest indication that our city is moving in the right direction. Such a big part of being a City of Hope is the belief that here you will be able to find work and take care of the family. It is a simple but powerful truth that good government underpins investment, investment underpins economic growth, and economic growth lifts people out of poverty,’ said Mayor Hill-Lewis. 

Building a City of Hope for all 

Mayor Hill-Lewis further touched on various progress made towards building a City of Hope over the term of office, including:

• Adding over 1 300 new City police officers to the streets, alongside a major safety tech investment in dashcams, bodycams, drones, CCTV and more.
• The City has secured its first 200MW of independent power to reduce Eskom reliance, and became the first to pay cash for power from solar PV users, and to enable energy trading across the municipal grid
• Releasing more land for affordable housing in five years than the decade prior, growing the pipeline to over 14 000 units
• Driving the major R7,1bn Cape Flats MyCiTi bus route expansion – SA’s biggest public transport project – set to benefit over 1,4 million residents across 30 neighbourhoods, from Mitchells Plain and Khayelitsha, to Wynberg and Claremont.
• Creating an Ease of Doing Business Index to track red tape reduction and position Cape Town as Africa’s easiest place to do business    

‘Leading this team, and being so closely involved in the plans and projects that are changing the trajectory of this great city and the lives of its residents for the better, is a joy and privilege – one that I will never take for granted.

‘These five years have been, without a doubt, the most rewarding chapter of my working life, and I will say it again: it is the singular honour of my life to serve as Mayor of this great city,’ said Mayor Hill-Lewis.

Caption: Mayor Hill-Lewis delivered his final address to City Council for the term in office on 20 August 2026.