Cape Town city improvement continuing
Cape Town city improvement continuing
The Cape Town Central City Improvement District (CCID) celebrated the end of its 13th year in operation at its AGM on Tuesday.
It also celebrated the 13th year of having obtained clean audits from its auditors.
Chairperson Rob Kane posed the question: “Exactly what business is the CCID in?”
Having become such an essential component of the fabric of the Central City, the CCID potentially ran the risk, said Kane “that it may no longer be as obvious either to local stakeholders or to visitors as to what value we add to this environment”.
Outlining the CCID’s unique selling propositions, Kane noted that: “In the case of the CCID, these are the products we provide, and the level to which we deliver them, in value-added, top up services in addition to those provided by our primary partners at the City of Cape Town and Saps”.
These services fell across four distinct departments, namely safety and security, urban management, social development and communications and marketing, and enabled the CCID to deploy a 600-strong task force across the CBD.
Describing the value per rand that each ratepayer received for the top up levies paid in terms of the CCID’s Special Areas Rating, Kane explained that 50c in each rand went towards safety and security, 21c was spent on urban management, 7c on social development, 8c on communications and marketing and 14c on administrative costs to run the CCID.
“Plus, for every R1 that the CCID tangibly spends in service delivery, our stakeholders receive as much as R5 in added value when one considers the ‘intangible’ – the hours the CCID staff spends in consultation and facilitation of cooperative relationships, problem solving, evaluation, and research and assessment of systems,” he said.
Against its running budget of R38m for the year under review, Kane noted that the CCID provided top-up services in an area with “a total municipal value of R23bn, that generated R216m in rates over the year, all within the CCID boundaries of 1.6km²”.
Kane highlighter a number of the CCID’s major achievements during the financial year.
Safety and security saw a reduction in the numbers of A-grade crimes, including theft out of motor vehicles, chain snatching and ATM fraud.
With an average response time of under five minutes, the CCID’s unit is still the number one respondent on in the scene for the City’s own Cyclops camera surveillance unit.
Urban management reported a substantial reduction in litter, waste and illegal dumping, and thanks to its ongoing cleaning of stormwater drains in the CBD, the area saw no flooding for the seventh year in a row.
Social development reported considerable success with preventative measures when identifying adolescent day strollers and new children coming into the Central City.
It likewise had considerable success in terms of referring mothers using children to beg to family services falling under the department of social development.
Source: fin24.com