New South African smart city in an unexpected location a complete mirage

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20-01-2026
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Nearly five years after plans emerged for a smart city on the Eastern Seaboard, and seven years after Cyril Ramaphosa’s “South African dream” speech, the Wild Coast Smart City remains a blueprint without a brick.

In 2021, it was revealed that the ANC had been working on plans for a new South African smart city between Port St. Johns and Margate on the Wild Coast.

Former minister of cooperative governance and traditional affairs Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma presented the plan at the ANC’s national executive committee lekgotla in September of that year.

In her presentation, she described the proposed city as “coastal, smart, vibrant, integrated, prosperous, sustainable and resilient.”

The proposal came after President Cyril Ramaphosa, two years earlier, credited Dlamini-Zuma as one of the people who inspired his dream of an entirely new smart city rising in South Africa.

“I dream of a South Africa where the first entirely new city built in the democratic era rises, with skyscrapers, schools, universities, hospitals and factories,” Ramaphosa said in his 2019 State of the Nation address.

“This dream has been fueled by my conversations with four people: Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, Dr Naledi Pandor, Ms Jessie Duarte, and President Xi Jinping.”

Ramaphosa said Jinping’s account of how China is building a new Beijing had helped to consolidate his dream.

“We have not built a new city in 25 years of democracy. 70% of South Africans are going to be living in the urban areas by 2030,” he said.

“The cities of Johannesburg, Tshwane, Cape Town and Ethekwini are running out of space to accommodate all those who throng to the cities.”

Ramaphosa asked whether the time had arrived to build a new smart city founded on the technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

“This is a dream we can all share and participate in building. I would like to invite South Africans to begin imagining this prospect,” he said.

“We should imagine a country where bullet trains pass through Johannesburg as they travel from here to Musina, and they stop in Buffalo City on their way from Ethekwini back here.”

Seven years after Ramaphosa’s dream speech, the Wild Coast smart city remains a phantom project, riding the coattails of a decade-old highway plan it had no hand in starting.

In November, Eastern Cape premier Lubabalo Oscar Mabuyane told delegates of an investment conference for the Eastern Seaboard Development that the programme was still in its planning stages.

Mabuyane’s address did not mention a smart city once, but instead described the creation of “smart regional development nodes”.

He said the catalytic initiatives envisaged for the Eastern Seaboard would be anchored on the development of Port St. Johns and Coffee Bay as future smart, sustainable regional development nodes.

These would integrate modern infrastructure, digital connectivity, environmentally sensitive planning, and mixed-use economic precincts.

“This framing aligns with the evolving national approach, which prioritises regional development ecosystems over the creation of entirely new metropolitan-scale cities,” he stated.

To highlight the progress that has been made, Mabuyane spoke about the SA National Road Agency (SANRAL) N2 Wild Coast project.

“The N2 Wild Coast Highway is a foundational enabler of economic transformation along this corridor,” he said.

“The Mtentu and Msikaba Bridges, together with the full N2 upgrade, open unprecedented opportunities for logistics, freight efficiency, tourism expansion, and investment into previously isolated coastal areas.”

These megabridges alone are expected to cost R5.8 billion, and they have faced several delays and obstacles since construction began in 2017.

At inception, the Mtentu bridge was supposed to cost R1.6 billion. However, the company responsible for building it walked out on the project in early 2019 following months of violent community protests.

The contract, now worth R4.05 billion, was awarded to the China Communications Construction Company and Mota-Engil Construction South Africa in a joint venture in November 2022.

Construction started on August 5, 2023, and the bridge now has an expected completion date of end-2027.

Meanwhile, the Msikaba bridge project is worth R1.75 billion, and a portion of the contract value has been allocated for local labour and subcontracting to targeted enterprises.

Supposed to be completed in 2025, the bridge will span over the 198-meter-deep Msikaba river gorge and is being constructed by the Concor-Mota Engil joint venture as the main contractor.

With a 580-meter deck span, the structure will be the longest cable-stayed bridge on the continent, in terms of main span. It will have the second-longest main span of any bridge in Africa.

Currently, it also ranks among the highest bridges in Africa, only exceeded by the Bloukrans bridge, also in South Africa, and will be surpassed by the Mtentu bridge.

“The Wild Coast Mtentu and Msikaba Bridges are critical logistical enablers. Their completion modernises the N2, making it safer and more efficient for heavier freight and frequent traffic,” said Mabuyane.

However, these upgrades to the Eastern Cape’s road infrastructure have been underway since 2017, with earlier phases dating back to 2011 — long before Ramaphosa’s smart city dreams.

According to a SANRAL website for the N2 Wild Coast upgrade initiative, the project has two phases: a major upgrade of existing roads and the construction of 96km of brand new highway.

The upgrade of the N2 between East London and Mthatha and the R61 between Mthatha and Ndwalane near Port St. Johns is a section-by-section improvement, which has been underway since 2011.