Minister of Infrastructure

(1)(a) The Department endeavours regularly to maintain, track, and update informal settlement-related data on its Informal Settlement Database.  The process for updating the Department’s Database relies on municipalities providing the Department with accurate settlement-level data.  The data captured mostly includes informal settlements’ names, locations, boundaries, structure count, and may include levels of service provision (including sanitation, water, electricity, and waste collection).  The capturing and provision of this type of information by municipalities does not rely on the need for physical door-to-door enumerations, which are usually costly and lengthy.

According to the Department’s 2022 Database, there are approximately 112 228 structures located across 417 informal settlements within non-metro municipalities.  According to data provided to the Department by the City of Cape Town (CoCT), there are currently 269 811 structures located across 806 informal settlements within the metro area.

The informal settlement database managed by the Department does not include the count of persons per structure for all informal settlements at this stage except for areas where full enumerations are conducted. Utilising the Census average household size per area to extrapolate the total number of persons in the Western Cape informal settlements will give a distorted figure considering the different profiles and locational contexts associated with informal settlements. Therefore, an accurate inhabitant count per structure cannot be extrapolated by utilising an average figure per structure. An accurate count would require the conducting of physical door-to-door enumerations.

(b) When comparing the figures captured by the Department’s Informal Settlement Database of 2022 with those of 2019, it can be noted that there has been an increase of approximately 27 informal settlements and an increase of 29 764 structures within non-metro municipalities. According to data provided to the Department by the City of Cape Town (CoCT), there has been an increase of approximately 172 informal settlements and 39 893 structures within the metro area.

(2) With the exception of Laingsburg Municipality – which does not contain any informal settlements – all other Municipalities within the Province strive to provide informal settlements with access to basic services. 

(a) According to the Department’s Informal Settlement Database for the Non-Metro municipalities collated in 2022: 54 informal settlements (across 13 municipalities) lack access to electricity; 23 informal settlements (across eight municipalities) lack access to sanitation; and sixteen informal settlements (across 6 municipalities) lack access to water. Similar to the non-metro municipalities, the City of Cape Town also has settlements with limited or no access to basic services. The information provided below speaks only to non-metro municipalities’ data: 

(i) Lack of access to electricity: Beaufort West, Breede Valley, Drakenstein, George, Knysna, Langeberg, Oudtshoorn, Overstrand, Saldanha Bay, Stellenbosch, Swartland, Swellendam, and Theewaterskloof.  For more detail, please refer to Addendum A.

(ii) Lack of access to sanitation: Beaufort West, Breede Valley, Langeberg, Mossel Bay, Saldanha Bay, Stellenbosch, Swartland, Theewaterskloof.  Lack of access to water: Beaufort West, Langeberg, Mossel Bay, Saldanha Bay, Stellenbosch, and Theewaterskloof.  For more information, please refer to Addendum B.

*Note: The Department has endeavoured regularly to maintain, track, and update informal settlement-related data on its Informal Settlement Database. However, the process for updating the Department’s Database relies on municipalities providing the Department with accurate settlement-level data.

MR TERTUIS SIMMERS

MINISTER OF INFRASTRUCTURE

DATE: