Last week work stopped at the MyCiti construction site in Philippi due to death threats, according to the City of Cape Town.
- Construction for the MyCiTi rollout along Govan Mbeki Road has faced numerous delays since 2022.
- The City says contractors recently received death threats.
- This week the Western Cape High Court extended an interdict until April 2026 against the Philippi and Crossroads business forums, preventing them from entering the site without permission.
- The forums deny the allegations made by the City and say they are being sidelined.
Extortionists are “hell-bent on derailing” the MyCiTi bus project along Govan Mbeki Road in Philippi, says the City of Cape Town. The project was launched in 2022.
In a statement this week the City welcomed a decision by the Western Cape High Court to extend an interim interdict obtained last month against the Philippi Business Forum and Crossroads Business Forum and two of their members. The interdict against intimidating and threatening officials and workers or entering the site without permission is effective until 21 April 2026, when the matter will be argued in court.
The City said contractors had received death threats.
According to the City, the forums failed to present their answering affidavits as to why the order should not be made permanent.
In a media statement, Mayco member for urban mobility Rob Quintas said, “Self-proclaimed ‘activists’ within the Philippi Business Forum, Crossroads Business Forum and other affiliated entities have engaged in intimidation, threats, and blatant misinformation campaigns in their shameless efforts to dictate how and to whom employment opportunities are awarded.”
Quintas said, “There are lawful and transparent processes available to local businesses and residents from the affected wards to apply for the available opportunities that form part of this construction project.”
In its media release the City said, “The interdict does not prevent anyone from participating in the project. It only stops those who are trying to hijack it through threats, violence and sabotage. The City continues to encourage all eligible businesses to submit their profiles via the clearly marked boxes at the subcouncil offices.”
Attorney Ashley Leeuw, for the business forums, told GroundUp that the City labelling his clients as extortionist (in the press release) was “damning to their reputation”.
“It is very unfair to our clients,” said Leeuw.
“Due to insufficient time we could not oppose an interim interdict but we filed a motion to oppose,” he said. “There is no final court interdict against my clients.”
He said the interim order had been granted to allow work to continue at the site.
“The allegations set out in the City’s court application are denied as false,” he said.
He said his clients have no intention of going to the site.
“It is all lies they’re spreading that we have intimidated workers at the site,” Thanduxolo Xokoza, Philippi Business Forum secretary, told GroundUp.
“This started last year when the subcouncil invited us to an information service on how we will participate and benefit from the project and that was the last time the City had a meeting with us.”
He said small businesses in Philippi had gone to the site on 15 May to seek answers from the Community Liaison Officers. Xokoza said their approach was peaceful.
On 28 May, the businesses had again gone to stop construction until their demands were met.
“The project was halted last week until our businesses are given an opportunity,” said Xokoza.
“We also have companies that are able to do some work at the construction of the project. The community also joined in because they also want to be part of the project.
“We are business people and have a right to be part of the project,” he said.
Crossroads Business Forum member Nokuzola Mpimpi said, “We were surprised to see the work continuing last month and this prompted businesses to rally and go to confront the main contractor at the site.”
Construction resumed on Wednesday.
© 2025 GroundUp. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
You may republish this article, so long as you credit the authors and GroundUp, and do not change the text. Please include a link back to the original article.
We put an invisible pixel in the article so that we can count traffic to republishers. All analytics tools are solely on our servers. We do not give our logs to any third party. Logs are deleted after two weeks. We do not use any IP address identifying information except to count regional traffic. We are solely interested in counting hits, not tracking users. If you republish, please do not delete the invisible pixel.
The #JusticeForWorkers movement advocates for fair labor practices and workers’ rights.
Canine Hannibal
Laduma! – he scores! [laa-doo-maa] This term is usually screamed out when a soccer team scores a goal. Extend any of the syllables for full effect.Example: “Laaaaaaduuuuumaaaa!”
Necromancer
A British man on safari walks into a bar far out in the reaches of a game reserve in Southern Africa, he stays at the bar for a while shooting the shit with the bartender and drinking like a fish, he offer to buy the barkeep a round and since no one else is within 2km of their small oasis of liquor the barkeep obliges. The englishman goes off to the bathroom to have a good old go at the porcelain, he\’s back and ready for a few more whiskeys. He\’s just sat down when suddenly in the distance he hears a scream. He looks over his shoulder and dismisses it as nothing, he turns to the barkeep and orders a drink, takes a sip and hears the scream again. He looks at the barkeep who just shrugs it off. A minute or two later he and the barman hear it again and go outside to take a look. They see a lone figure running towards them screaming, he spots them and lets out a cry, RUN!!!!! HE\”S COMING!!!!!
The barkeep and the Englishman both look at the terrified bedraggled sight before them, and try to calm him down, but he\’s completely inconsolable. They give him water and finally manage to get a word out of him but he struggles free from their grasp and run away screaming.
A few minutes later the same thing happens with a whole group of men running in and screaming, he\’s coming, he\’s coming the barkeep grabs hold of one of the men as he tries to sprint past the bar and tries to get information out of him, again no response other than terrified gibberish.
The barkeep and his customer are starting to get worried, they start to pack up before another group of horrified natives run up to the bar most of them flee but one tries to hide behind the bar, the barkeep pulls out a shotgun and points it at the terrified man\’s face, finally managing to coax some words out of him. \”He\’s coming for us, Vernon Koekemoer is coming for us, we have to hide!!! We have to get out of here.\” He gets up and tries to run but the barkeep grabs him, feeling trapped in a panic he grabs the barkeeps shotgun and blows his own head off. The Englishman and the barkeep look at each other starting to really panic now.
They look out of the window and off in the distance they see a tornado coming towards the bar, at the bottom of the tornado they see the hugest beast of a man they have ever seen, as he gets closer they spot that he is riding a rhinocerous and using a crocodile as a riding whip, with each smack of the crocodile across the back of the rhino the louder is screams and the faster it runs, the tornado following it getting ever larger.
The 2 look at each other and start to fortify their position, they\’ve got a gun and they\’re waaay to drunk to run, so they start piling bar stool and tables and anything they can get their hands on to make sure they\’ll be safe when he arrives. They\’re not gonna make it, they can see the man slowing down his rhino, by now the crocodile is nothing but reptile paste on the bruised rump of the half dead rhino, the rhino drops down dead from exhaustion and crashes to the ground right outside the bar the tornado loses it\’s last breath in a cloud of dust as the huge man crashes his way through the make shift barricade and charges up towards the bar where the 2 men have taken shelter, he grabs a bottle of the hardest liquor on the shelf and down the entire litre in 1 gulp, he peers over the bar sobbing and sees the 2 defenders cowering down behind the crates of beer, they look up at the mans\’ face and he stares at them with a look of complete and utter hopelessness, he stares at them for a half second and half screams, half sobs, \”Oh my god what are you still doing here!!! WE HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE NOW!!!! Vernon Koekemoer is coming!!!!\”