Cape Town's Money Wasting Department is at it again where millions have already been blown away

Dear Cape Town Ratepayers,

Patricia de Lille

          Your City’s futile efforts to stabilise the sand above a rubbish dump that was closed 30 years ago have already wasted nearly R6-million. But the Council has learnt nothing from this reckless use of your money.

It has just started splurging more on a repeat of what it has proved conclusively doesn’t work. This scandal is particularly galling because there are so many more deserving causes among the poor.

My plea to the Mayor Patricia de Lille to stop this has proved fruitless and yesterday kilometres of costly, brand new netting was once again being erected on the dunes at Witsands next to a popular surfing beach not far from Cape Point.

        About a year ago netting was put up at exactly the same place after the wind exposed the rubbish and tons of sand was twice brought in by heavy earth moving equipment to cover it.

         The nets were supposed to ensure that the sand remained in place. But the strong winds that are endemic to the area just blew them and the sand away. And again the plastic and other non-biodegradable material that still remains was revealed.

This time the nets have been erected directly onto the exposed rubbish without it being first covered with sand. So if the experiment didn’t work the first time it is even more unlikely to work now.

February 2016 sand was dumper here to cover exposed rubbish
which was netted. Within a couple of months this had to be
repeated because everything had blown away 

Feb 2017 the place where the sand shown above was dumped
       and had nets put over it after it was all blown away

March 2017 part of the same area immediately above showing
the rubbish more clearly

 

April 2017 new nets that have just been erected over the exposed 
rubbish shown in the above two pictures

           The whole idea of all this fruitless tinkering with nature is to try and ensure that in the winter rainy season none of the existing rubbish gets washed out into the sea.

Yet the Council is making little effort to do what the international experts believe is the most cost effective and sure way of stabilising sand dunes. And that is to cover them with vegetation. This is growing naturally on either side of the 19 ha site but it doesn’t stand a chance of getting established over the dump if the Council keeps moving the sand around almost annually with heavy earth moving equipment.

        How can Patricia de Lille, her City and ours still claim to be “committed to building a Caring City, a city that does everything it can to help  those most in need of our assistance” when it regards misusing huge amounts of money on a obsolete RUBBISH DUMP as more important than people.

I ASK YOU ONCE AGAIN PATRICIA TO STOP THIS DREADFUL INDICTMENT ON YOUR REIGN AS MAYOR OF THE MOTHER CITY.

Regards,

Jon, a disgusted ratepayer who deplores this kind of public waste which is one of the main reasons our country is being dragged into the gutter.
P.S. See: millions blown away