Hill-Lewis hints at move to national government after 2029 elections

DA leader Geordin Hill-Lewis has indicated he might serve only three years of a new five-year term as Cape Town’s mayor if he is re-elected in November’s local elections to head arguably the best-run metro in the country.

There had been talk in DA corridors over the possibility of moving Hill-Lewis to national government or parliament after the November 4 vote to provide him with a higher national profile in the run-up to the 2029 general elections.

But the 39-year-old mayor, who was elected DA federal leader in April, told the Sunday Times in an interview that he would only consider moving to national government after the national vote.

“My intention is to stay until 2029. I foresee that in 2029 I will then have to focus on national politics,” he said from his office on the sixth floor of the Cape Town Civic Centre.

“But certainly, until then, with my government hat on, my focus is here in Cape Town.

“With my political hat, we must do everything possible to give ourselves the best chance of being the largest party in 2029, and that is going to require significant growth among people who have not voted for us before, mainly former ANC voters or young people who have never voted, and that means we have to show them that we can genuinely be for all South Africans.

Hill-Lewis, who was first elected to his mayoral office in 2021, says he wants a second term so that he can complete his infrastructure development plans for Cape Town, which he says have led to massive job creation

“Where we govern, everyone benefits from the DA being in government, and that is the most important thing we have to communicate over the next three years, which is why the Gauteng metros are so important, why our position in the GNU [government of national unity] is so important. And that is going to be my focus, politically speaking for the next three years.”

Two months after his election as blue party leader and having gained insights into how the GNU operates, Hill-Lewis is still convinced that it remains best for him not to take up a ministerial position.

“Not for now. I don’t think it’s ever wise to say never. But certainly, for now I think that it’s better for me to have a healthy distance from the cabinet and from the president so that I can say exactly what I believe and what I think is best for the country and can do so without fear or favour — to stand for what the DA believes in. And so being a mayor is the best platform to demonstrate what the DA can do, and we have demonstrated that here in Cape Town.”

Hill-Lewis, who was first elected to his mayoral office in 2021, says he wants a second term so that he can complete his infrastructure development plans for Cape Town, which he says have led to massive job creation.

Among these, he cites huge wastewater treatment and sewer spillage projects in areas such as Khayelitsha, Philippi, Mitchells Plain and Milnerton, along with the MyCiTi bus rapid transit system in those areas, which alone is costing R7.5bn.

Hill-Lewis said these and other construction projects have created more than 480,000 jobs in the post-Covid period and debunked the argument that his city prioritises the more affluent and developed suburbs of Cape Town.

“The Zandvliet water treatment project in Khayelitsha was the first one we completed. That was under R4bn. The biggest pressure we faced was wastewater. Our sewerage system was and remains under tremendous pressure.

“Then we did Potsdam wastewater worth R5.2bn. We are constructing the Macassar wastewater treatment. That’s R3.7bn. We have finished Athlone. It was a smaller project, about a billion. We are currently doing the biggest water pipe replacement in South Africa.

“What that means from a resident’s perspective is that you can then do more toilet connections and have few sewer spills in the communities.”

Turning to the controversial plan to build a “security wall” along the N2 strip close to Cape Town International Airport at a cost of R114m, Hill-Lewis said he is going ahead. The plan has been slammed as a segregation symbol that sought to hide Cape Town’s poverty from tourists. But the mayor dismissed that, saying the planned wall would help reduce crime on the N2 highway, where locals and international tourists are often victims of smash-and-grab attacks.

The people who criticise in the media are people who don’t even live in Cape Town. They live in other parts of the country and don’t understand the context of how bad the safety issue is on the N2. So we are absolutely proceeding

“I think this is political opportunism by our opponents who are trying to find an issue to campaign on because they have no other. But they have chosen the wrong issue because this is hugely supported by the public.

“The people who criticise in the media are people who don’t even live in Cape Town. They live in other parts of the country and don’t understand the context of how bad the safety issue is on the N2. So we are absolutely proceeding.”

Hill-Lewis said he was worried about how the “property market in Cape Town has run extremely hot”, driven mostly by the semigration phenomenon as well as some expatriates.

More than 100,000 families have moved to Cape Town in the last three years alone.

“We have to increase the supply of new housing in the city. We have to cut red tape and make it easier to build things in Cape Town.

“It cannot take two years, or even four years, to build new housing in a city with the housing pressure that we have. [We will] release more city land. We have made good progress in this, and we will make further progress in releasing more city-owned parking lots and unused derelict land.

“These things cannot be kept in the city’s clutches forever; we must release them for affordable accommodation.”

The most important way to curb soaring house prices in Cape Town is to fix Gauteng metros such as Johannesburg, he said.

That would relieve the pressure that has pushed “a huge number of middle- and upper-middle-class people” to migrate to Cape Town and has sent house prices soaring.

“So I would say the best thing you can do to stabilise property prices in Cape Town is to vote for Gogo Helen in Joburg,” he said.