• Cape Town mayor Dan Plato and ward 19 councillor Ebrahim Sawant distributed 120 food parcels to the Kalkfontein, Smartie Town and Vrygrond communities on Tuesday.
• A total of 500 food parcels will be distributed to the greater Kuils River area over the next two days.
• Sawant said he had not received a single food parcel for his ward from Sassa since lockdown started; he relies on the City and donors.

The mayor of Cape Town, Dan Plato, joined ward 19 councillor, Ebrahim Sawant, at the Van Riebeeck Hall in Kuils River, where hundreds of food parcels had been organised for community leaders to collect.

The mayor and Sawant then went into one of the communities to personally deliver some of the food parcels to the most vulnerable.

“We would like to give to everybody, but unfortunately we don’t – and we have made an assessment in our communities by way of the organisations and our leadership to see who are the most vulnerable and the most poor people that we must serve first,” Sawant said.

READ | Western Cape municipal mayor dies of Covid-19

He added that since Sassa (SA Social Security Agency) made an announcement in April, he has not received a single food parcel from the agency.

“We managed to put in place our own plans to get donors and luckily the mayor has also come up with the mayoral relief plan… It’s very important that all of us, government, business and all of our donors, work together and see how we can best manage this poverty among our people,” he said.

The mayor echoed this sentiment when he said that the government would never be able to do it alone.

READ ALSO | Western Cape Premier Alan Winde tests positive for Covid-19

He said the initiative was a partnership between the City Cape Town, non-governmental organisations and the church, who he thanked specifically.

“I’ve said it before, we need to rely many a times on the goodwill of partners and to take the hands of other people; the more the merrier, and by taking hands you can achieve a bit more,” he told News24.