Hill-Lewis, Thuynsma face off over housing, jobs and policing in Cape Town - IOL

DA mayoral candidate Geordin Hill-Lewis and ANC candidate Jeremiah Thuynsma debate housing, jobs, policing and municipal governance ahead of the 2026 local government elections.

Cape Town mayoral candidate Geordin Hill-Lewis and the ANC’s Jeremiah Thuynsma competed on housing records and made promises on safety and jobs during a debate on Tuesday.

Hill-Lewis, who is seeking a second term, said he would like a mandate from the voters to take Cape Town forward after making the City the most functional and successful in the country and smashing national records for new jobs created over the past five years.

“We've got to get cheaper electricity. We've got to carry on fighting for more policing powers to make our city safer. We've got to carry on releasing city-owned land for more housing projects to get people into affordable accommodation.”

He also said the ANC was desperate to take over Cape Town again whereas there was destruction wherever the party governed across the country.

“Let us prevent that from ever happening in Cape Town by turning out,” said Hill-Lewis as he urged DA voters to turn out in numbers amid polls indicating its majority was standing on shaky ground.

Thuynsma said his party wanted an opportunity to continue with what they did when they were in power in the City until 2006.

“We were able to basically deliver more houses in those three years than the DA did for the period that they entered 20 years ago. We transferred title deeds to people who basically had been living in council rental stock for more than 15 years. That project also got stopped. So we want to continue that,” he said.

Thuynsma also said the ANC took the safety of communities very seriously.

“It is important that our community participate in their own safety so that the police can basically do their work. Metro police and law enforcement must work in partnership to basically fight the issue of crime, and that is what we basically want to do,” he said.

He also said the ANC wants investment to take place in areas where people lived and build houses where there were existing opportunities.

Thuynsma added that he would do a land audit of land belonging to the national government, provincial government, and the City as well as government agencies.

“There are big parcels of land that belong to the State that can be used to develop new human settlements closer to opportunities, and that is the kind of intervention that we are going to make because we believe as long as we work together as three spheres of government, we can change the lives of our people.”

However, Hill-Lewis dismissed the claim by Thuynsma that the ANC built more houses during the three years it was in power in Cape Town.

“I went to the city's audited reports, our annual reports from those three years, and the claim is completely false. According to the city's published annual reports for those three years, they built 9 862 homes. We built 23 534 homes,” he said.

But Thuynsma stated that he had been the provincial head of the Housing Development Agency, formerly Thubelisa, that ran the N2 Gateway project.

“The project was set for 29 000 houses. In the time that we were there, we were able to deliver more than 16 000 houses. The unfortunate part is that when the DA took over the City, they refused to continue with the project,” he said.

Asked to provide assurances to voters that the City’s procurement processes were being properly managed after the City obtained a unqualified audit opinion with matters of emphasis, Hill-Lewis said: “I'm very confident to say that our tender processes are conducted with full integrity and transparency, and that this is the one city in the country where people can know that when they pay their rates and service charges at the end of the month, their money is being spent on the things it is intended for.”

Thuynsma said within the first 100 days, he will conduct a skills audit of the City’s employees to make sure that the needed skills were there.

“We have people in positions that are not really qualified for, but they've been brought in by the party that's in control.”