The City of Cape Town says extortion is affecting 15 municipal projects, with work stopped at five, while other projects face business-forum interference.
Extortion is affecting 15 City of Cape Town projects and has stopped work at five of them, according to figures supplied by the municipality.
A further 17 projects are facing interference from groups describing themselves as business forums, with two of those projects also halted, the city told Eyewitness News.
The figures point to continuing disruption across municipal construction and service-delivery work. Safety and Security MMC JP Smith said road-refurbishment projects in Delft had been stopped repeatedly, causing contractors to withdraw and forcing the city to appoint replacements.
The municipality attributes the disruption to groups allegedly demanding money or work from contractors. Those claims remain allegations unless tested in criminal proceedings, and the city has called for the people responsible to be arrested and prosecuted.
Security escorts are being used to keep some work moving. Smith said the arrangement was not a long-term answer because it diverts enforcement resources while contractors and municipal teams remain exposed to repeated interference.
The city has also pursued court orders to protect specific projects. In August, the Western Cape High Court granted a final interdict against unlawful interference with the MyCiTi Cape Flats route expansion along Govan Mbeki Road and the Lansdowne-Wetton corridor.
City figures released with that order showed that the Urban Mobility Directorate requested 1,274 security escorts for contractors between July 2025 and May 2026. Those deployments accounted for 8,406 hours of law-enforcement resources at road-construction sites.
The MyCiTi expansion is intended to serve more than 1.4 million residents across 30 neighbourhoods, including Mitchells Plain, Khayelitsha, Wynberg and Claremont. The interdict applies to named respondents and any other people unlawfully interfering with the project; it is not a finding against legitimate businesses operating in the area.
The latest city-wide figures do not identify every affected site or quantify the full value of delayed work. They do, however, show that unlawful interference is continuing to affect both project schedules and the municipal resources assigned to protect construction teams.
