Famous as a location for the rich, Bitou municipality in the southern Cape must also keep in mind those who are less well-off. That’s Jessica Kamkam’s job.
In August 2024, Kamkam became the third mayor in a year in a politically fragile municipality that includes high-end holiday towns such as Plettenberg Bay, Harkerville, Covie and Nature’s Valley. Alongside Plett is the less affluent Kranshoek, originally a Griqua trekker settlement. Kamkam was born in nearby Kurland.
She became mayor when her party, the DA, ousted Claude Terblanche of the Plett Democratic Congress. Kamkam is also the first woman mayor in a municipality where women fill the top three positions. Nokuzola Kolwapi of the Ikhwezi Political Movement is deputy mayor and Mavis Busakwe of the Active United Front is speaker.
Part of Kamkam’s role requires maintaining a delicate political balancing act and responding to immediate challenges: housing and the role of the municipal manager.
In 2021, hundreds of people from the informal settlement of Qolweni, near Kranshoek, blocked the N2 for four days, demanding updates about a promised housing project. Construction for the R33.5m project began in September 2021 and last year Kamkam handed over 41 title deeds as part of it. “We must now look at our [housing] database as well and see the offerings that we bring to the table,” she tells the FM.
Kamkam recently attended a housing market study briefing by the provincial government in Cape Town. The municipalities included were Swartland, Saldanha Bay, Overstrand, Breede Valley, Bitou, Knysna and Oudtshoorn.
According to recent Western Cape government statistics, about 9,000 people in Bitou are on the housing waiting list. Some families have been waiting for as long as 28 years.
“We are facing growing pressure to respond to housing demand. There are issues of land availability and the housing market is driven by demand and supply. This information will help us assist the poorest of the poor. It will help us identify spatial trends,” says Kamkam.
Bitou has the densest population of the seven Garden Route municipalities, with 72 people per square kilometre, more than the next highest, Knysna (69), according to the latest Bitou municipality report. And that’s not counting the annual boom during the summer holidays. The report puts the population at 71,253, projected to rise to 80,000 in 2027.
Kamkam says Bitou is looking at reconstruction zones and at properties suitable for social housing. Most households, she says, fall into the gap market in the municipality. “Our main objective is to bring the municipality together and address the issue of inequality,” she said at the briefing.
We would obviously like to have an outright majority. But at this point, we don’t, so we need to work together
— Jessica Kamkam
Kamkam tells the FM she is learning a lot from working with people from different parties. “We would obviously like to have an outright majority. But at this point, we don’t, so we need to work together,” she says.
Being a local, she is fully aware of the issues on the ground, including an unemployment rate of about 30%.
Kamkam says outsiders may see Bitou as a place for the rich and famous, “but it’s not. Inequality is a problem. We are very segregated, which is a challenge.”
Her term has also been marked by controversy over municipal manager Mbulelo Memani, with opposition parties demanding his suspension after allegations of corruption.
The municipality says Memani’s future is being “handled within the boundaries of the legislative framework and in full compliance with all appropriate laws and regulations”. Memani has said the allegations are “politically motivated”.
Aside from those challenges is the attraction of Bitou’s rustic charms. “We have a beautiful environment,” she says. “And the people are friendly. It’s a small town and we know one another. People from different backgrounds are involved in the community.”
Growing up, says Kamkam, she didn’t necessarily want to become a politician. But she has always had a passion for community work.
“People don’t realise what a difference good governance can make. In a world with different political ideologies, good governance means different things. To some people, good governance might just be a clean audit. To another person, good governance will be proper sanitation. Good public representatives ... they’re scarce,” she says.
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