Letter to Councillor Alex Lansdowne, Chair of the Mayor's advisory committee for water quality in the wetlands and waterways.

Good afternoon Councillor Lansdowne

First of all can we say how welcome the announcement of this massive 5 fold increase in water and waterways spending is. Long overdue but very welcome all the same.

We see you will be in attendance at the Ward 64 community meeting on Feb 22nd in order to discuss the city's future plans.

You will no doubt be aware that the confirmation of the weedharvester contract has also been well received, although somewhat tempered by the excruciatingly long wait and by the extravagant budget cost of R40 million, up from the R11 million or so of the previous identical but failed tender (which itself appeared inflated compared to other options).

More than a few eyebrows have been raised regarding this number and numerous emails have been sent and copies to many parties, including yourself, requestingexplanation, but no satisfactory response has yet been received in any quarter as far as we are aware.

Without doubt thise questions and more will be raised at this meeting.

In order to save timne and avoid unnecessary questions could you please provide a copy of the tender and any relevant directives or correspondence from national government so that the public can see exactly how and why this R40 millionis to be spent and temper their questions accordingly?

We can then put it on the petition site so it can be considered by the 18,000 siganatories of the 2020 petition "Save the Zandvlei", that was so instrumental (along with others) in refocussing council attention on the dire needs of Cape Town's ailing waterways.

This I am sure would guarantee a great turn out of a far more informed and supportive audience than might other wise be the case.

Kind regards

The Save the Zandvlei Petitioners

C Whaley

G Higgins

Mike Ryder

Ross Devenish