Knysna’s new mayor talks up infrastructure fixes, opposition says council’s ‘reshuffling deckchairs on Titanic’

18 Mar 2025

Knysna’s problems won’t be fixed overnight, says new mayor Thando Matika. The ‘Jewel of the Garden Route’ has been beset with governance and service delivery problems. Matika wants to focus on infrastructure – starting with fixing potholes and sewerage pipes.

A new dam and water treatment centres are some of the fresh, long-term plans for new Knysna mayor Thando Matika. But in the short term he wants the municipality to start fixing infrastructure that has been at the root of several service delivery problems in the coastal municipality.

Matika, an ANC councillor, spoke to Daily Maverick shortly after being elected mayor unopposed on 28 February 2025 during a special council meeting. He explained some of the problems in the “Jewel of the Garden Route”, including a lack of trust from residents and service delivery issues.

Knysna’s issues are well known. Its audit result regressed in 2022/23 and there have been raw sewage spills, water shortages and, of course, a diagnostic report by the Western Cape government which unpacked how service delivery has gone wrong.

Read more: ‘When two elephants fight, it’s the grass that suffers — and Knysna is the grass’

“Currently, people don’t have trust in the Knysna Municipality so we need to restore that trust,” said Matika.

He is the municipality’s third mayor since the 2021 local government elections, following Leveal Davis from the DA, who was ousted in 2022 and who was followed by the ANC’s Aubrey Tsengwa.

Tsengwa was removed on Valentine’s Day this year following an outcry from residents. A swing vote from EFF councillor Neil Louw delivered the final blow and confirmed that the community had lost faith in Tsengwa’s ability to lead.

Knysna is led by a coalition of the ANC, Patriotic Alliance and regional party Plaaslike Besorgde Inwoners.

During Matika’s unopposed election, former mayor Davis advised him to remember the wards that needed support in terms of service delivery.

Matika had been a ward councillor until the 2021 elections, when he secured a council seat as a proportional representation candidate. Before joining politics he worked in the municipality’s infrastructure department.

New face, same ANC

The DA constituency head for Knysna, Ryan Smith, described Matika’s appointment as “merely a reshuffle of the chairs on the Titanic to maintain the interests of the coalition of corruption and disregard those of Knysna’s residents”.

“He’s honourable, he’s a good guy,” said Ralph Stander, chairperson of Knysna United, an organisation that aims to unite residents across the municipality.

“The problem is he’s still part of the ANC. That is where the conflict comes in,” said Stander on Matika, saying the party had been implicated in the malfunctioning of Knysna.

Stander said that if Matika was given a clean slate without having political party baggage, either with the ANC or the current coalition, “then he will do fine”.

He disagreed with Matika’s focus on improving infrastructure and said the first priority in the municipality should be getting rid of corruption.

“We need to sort out the fact that the municipality doesn’t even have one vehicle, like a rubbish truck or any of these big trucks – it’s all being hired from a certain supplier,” he claimed, citing the alleged influence corruption has on service delivery.

Infrastructure and finance woes

Matika told Daily Maverick the municipality had been receiving service delivery complaints, especially about water, sewage and potholes.

“We are dealing with it,” he claimed.

“Some of the infrastructure of the municipality, it’s old infrastructure,” he said

“Most of the challenges will derive from burst pipes, or if there’s a burst pipe, there will be challenges in terms of water… in terms of [sewage], there are challenges because it’s going to the lagoon.”

In Knysna’s 2024/25 budget, former mayor Tsengwa announced that R52.8-million had been allocated to repairs and maintenance, of which R46.4-million would go to infrastructure services.

“So there are challenges and the municipality is dealing with it,” said Matika, who said the municipality had been facing financial challenges for more than a decade.

There were short and long-term goals for the municipality: “We are reprioritising some of the budget to address more especially infrastructure projects such as water and sanitation, road repairs.”

In the long-term, the municipality had applied for grants to build an extra water treatment centre “because in our town we only have one”.

The municipality had also applied to build another dam to increase its water storage capacity.

The current dam and water treatment centre was built when Knysna’s population was low, explained Matika..

“So many residents when they migrate, some of them, they will start here in Knysna, before they go to Cape Town… Some, they will start here and stay here and then stay in informal areas… That is also having an impact in terms of our infrastructure.”

Knysna lies between Cape Town and Gqeberha.

According to the latest Census, there were 96,055 people living in Knysna in 2022, compared with 68,659 in 2011.

In the 2011 Census, 89.6% of residents had access to flushing water connected to sewerage and by 2022 this had risen to 93.9%.

Matika said his administration is engaging with different stakeholders in a bid to bring them on board.

He added that they were not “one-sided” on governance. “We are a government that involves communities and businesses. We also have to meet with businesses and civil society for us to build Knysna. We need to build Knysna brick by brick.

“But we cannot do it alone and we know that we need stakeholders, we need the communities, we need your businesses… We need civil society so that we can restore the trust of people in Knysna.” DM

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