N2 Violence Continues

GOOD Statement by Siyabulela Mamkeli, GOOD City of Cape Town Councillor:

The City of Cape Town Mayor’s attempt to shift responsibility for violent crime along the N2 by blaming SANRAL is misleading, contradictory, and unacceptable.

The stretch of the N2 between Cape Town International Airport and the city centre is not maintained by SANRAL. This section falls under provincial road maintenance, while the City of Cape Town retains clear constitutional and municipal responsibilities for public safety, crime prevention, and law-enforcement coordination.

This position is reinforced by a circular issued in April this year by Western Cape Minister of Infrastructure Tertius Simmers, and by extension the Department of Mobility, which confirmed that the roads’ function has always been a provincial competency. Municipalities merely perform aspects of this function through service level agreements with the province. That circular further confirmed that these SLAs will end in April 2026 and will not be renewed, making it clear that responsibility for these roads cannot be selectively reassigned for political convenience.

Against this backdrop, the mayor’s attempt to attribute violence along the N2 to an alleged “SANRAL upgrade” is factually incorrect. It is also contradicted by the City’s own actions. In October, the City itself launched a safety operation along the N2, deploying 44 additional Metro Police officers around the airport approach and other identified high-risk areas. SANRAL was present at that launch, yet the City did not suggest at the time that responsibility for safety lay elsewhere, nor did it defer leadership of the intervention to SANRAL.

Despite that deployment, violent crime has continued along this corridor. The brutal murder on Jakes Gerwel Drive occurred months after the City publicly claimed it was strengthening safety operations. This raises an unavoidable question. If the City believed SANRAL was responsible for the road and its associated risks, why did it lead the deployment, announce the intervention, and publicly claim credit for the initiative?

Using a tragedy to retrospectively justify an infrastructure project while shifting accountability away from the City and Province is deeply troubling. It does nothing to address the lived reality of Cape Flats communities, where violent crime is persistent, organised, and increasingly brazen. Children and other vulnerable residents continue to be caught in the crossfire, with no evidence of sustained intelligence-led policing or coordinated crime-prevention strategies.

Equally concerning is that the proposed R180 million wall has never been presented to the relevant Council Portfolio Committees. There has been no formal agenda item, no briefing to councillors, no crime-impact assessment, and no public strategy explaining how a wall would prevent violent or organised crime along this corridor.

Residents have therefore received no assurance that this expenditure is lawful, evidence-based, or effective.

The public deserves clear answers:

• Who authorised this project, and through which formal process was the decision taken?
• Why is a wall being proposed when earlier policing deployments have failed to prevent violence?
• What happened to the promised LEAP officer presence and sustained enforcement along the N2?
• How will this project avoid entrenching spatial division rather than improving safety?

Government cannot govern by press conference. It cannot lead interventions, claim success, and then disown responsibility when those interventions fail. Public funds must be spent transparently, within the law, and in line with proven crime-prevention strategies, not symbolic infrastructure announced after lives are lost.

The mayor must stop deflecting, stop misleading the public, and take responsibility for the ongoing safety failures along the N2.

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