Cape Town mayor: N2 wall is about safety, not racism

Cape Town mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis has defended the wall being built along the N2, saying it is meant to make everyone who uses the road safer and is not about race or keeping people out.

Speaking in a broadcast interview published by eNCA (YouTube), Hill-Lewis said a properly and scientifically conducted poll found that 70% of the city wants the barrier, describing those respondents as people who travel the road daily and are afraid to use it.

He rejected the charge that the project is racist and challenged critics to stop imputing motives to it. “It is not about racism. It is not about keeping people out. It is about making every user of the N2 safer,” he said in the interview.

Hill-Lewis argued that opposition to the wall is selective. He said a wall is under construction between Langa and Pinelands, and that a massive concrete wall is being built on the R300 at Hindleway to block access to that highway after a number of dangerous attacks there, including a murder. He said the ANC and the activist community have said nothing about either.

He added that walls on highways are a standard method in ANC-governed cities of stopping people from getting free access to a highway, and that walking on a highway is a crime in South Africa. People should not have access to a highway in order to commit crime, he said.

Hill-Lewis said he would not stop doing anything he can to make Capetonians safer.

The interview was published by eNCA (YouTube) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwSEUKXH64A.