As the local elections near, the main parties reveal their service delivery plans for the Western Cape.
EFF
Provincial leader: Bernard Joseph
Crime and policing
Under the EFF’s rule, police and law enforcement officers would have to undergo independent lifestyle audits, while municipalities under their control would employ community safety workers who would team with police to fight crime.
The party said the DA had successfully ensured that affluent areas were safe, while the poor majority was suffering, with 34 percent of drug-related crimes taking place in the Western Cape. It pointed to the DA’s failure to deal with the problem of drugs and gangs.
Western Cape MEC of Community Safety Dan Plato’s failed initiative of talking gangs into submission had not worked.
It was a failed social experiment in negotiating with those who held the poor hostage.
Unemployment:
It is ironic the DA criticised President Jacob Zuma for presenting Expanded Public Works Programme jobs as “work opportunities and not real jobs”, only for them to sing from the same hymn sheet when it came to the Expanded Public Works Programme in the Western Cape. The EFF said although the Expanded Public Works Programme facilitated some form of menial employment, the jobs were not sustainable.
Systemic poverty
The trickle down theory of poverty alleviation simply does not work and we propose that 50 percent of basic goods and services are sourced from within all EFF municipalities to ensure sustainable growth for all residents.
The EFF would insource all workers who perform municipality functions and would ensure that 40 percent of all investments in its jurisdiction would be administered by a community trust.
Service delivery
The DA’s disregard for safer sanitation has endangered the lives of citizens. Therefore the EFF promises running water, free electricity to the poor, the aged, indigents and those on a social grant, in every household where the party governs.
An EFF municipality would also probe ways in which clean energy can be generated in communities and would lobby for the deregulation of the energy sector in a way that benefits the poor. The party envisions a future where Eskom pays residents for generating electricity they feed into the grid, not the other way around.
Education
An EFF-run municipality would fund access to technological learning and would establish a bursary fund to ensure all deserving students can attend university. It would ensure that every ward it governs has an early childhood development centre. The DA wants to privatise the school system and instead of rehabilitating dysfunctional schools, would close schools it does not like.
Social welfare
EFF councillors would ensure that the child-headed households, the elderly and vulnerable residents be placed on a database to ensure no resident goes hungry.
Health care
The EFF plans to take health care to the people with the establishment of mobile clinics. This would be a free service to all residents. Queues for the aged would be a thing of the past as more hospitals would be built as essential services.
Corruption and accountability in government
All EFF councillors would be available 24 hours a day, six days a week. These councillors would fearlessly interrogate all the decisions taken in city councils and sub-councils and communicate this in a way that would be accessible to the communities they serve. Municipal officials would not be permitted to do businesses with the municipality to avoid corruption in tender processes.
Housing
Unlike the DA ,which uses the excuse of lack of available land to justify housing shortages, the EFF would ensure that the well resourced, apartheid-era style anti-land invasion unit is disbanded.
The EFF’s municipalities would appropriate land and give it to the historically dispossessed through a transparent mechanism on a “use it or lose it” basis. It would abolish all forms of informal settlements, upgrade the apartheid-era style flats into dignified living spaces and fast-track land claims for residents of informal settlement as well as backyard dwellers.
Infrastructure and development
The infrastructure footprint of the DA perpetuates apartheid spatial planning.
The EFF would not cast the poor out on to the fringes of civilisation, leaving them to fend for themselves. Adequate sanitation, roads and services are capital projects that can stimulate the local economy.
It would create a municipal roads agency responsible for the construction of roads and fresh produce markets to be the hub for producers and traders of fruit and vegetables.
ANC
Western Cape secretary Faiez Jacobs
Crime and policing
Taking a cautious approach on crime, the ANC said its previous track record speaks for itself.
“Crime was diminishing, gang lords and drug lords were put behind bars and communities were patrolled by thousands of volunteers under the banner of Bambanani.”
The city was safer because we had Bambanani Volunteers taking back our streets and communities. Community volunteers must be recruited to ensure visible policing in communities, resources must be deployed where needed, criminal high flyers must be named and shamed, community safety forums must be strengthened and street committees must be reactivated.
Unemployment
Promoting local procurement of goods and services to increase local production goes hand in hand with developing productive and creative skills of young people for economic projects and activities in municipalities.
Under the ANC, government unemployment in the province dropped to just over 20 percent, while billions of rand were invested in the province. Under ANC rule, the youth was given work through the Expanded Public Works programme which absorbed 200 000 volunteers working to fight crime, build roads, as community health workers, as agriculture support workers and as community development workers.
Systemic poverty
The ANC has fought poverty by ensuring universal coverage of social security to senior citizens, children, the disabled and people living with HIV and Aids. We have ensured free health care for those who needed it and free education for the most deserving and promising young children. We provided free electricity, we rolled out housing subsidies and insured service link-ups for informal settlements.
Service delivery
Equal service delivery across the province will be a priority. The ANC is very clear on the provision of basic services for poverty alleviation. We must enhance the capacity of municipality to accelerate upgrading and integration of informal settlements. There will be an aggressive focus on electrification, effective water treatment infrastructure and proper sanitation.
Education
The promotion of better collaboration between government departments, communities and other stakeholders to accelerate the development and support of early childhood development facilities is key to our delivery plan. We will work with parents, teachers, students and relevant stakeholders to take the quality of learning and teaching campaign to communities. We have fought to keep schools in impoverished areas open while the DA worked towards closing schools in communities.
Social welfare
Ensuring that municipal programmes respond to the socio-economy needs of all citizens is our priority. The ANC has changed the complexion of welfare services from apartheid institutions to non-racial ones. Social grants and pension are increased annually, providing much-needed assistance in poverty-stricken areas.
Health care
Working with the provincial and national departments to deliver clinics, and through operation Phakisa to speedily improve health infrastructure services, we have ensured the roll-out of health-care infrastructure across the province and built more than 200 clinics and hospitals. The waiting time was shorter and we home-delivered chronic medication to our elders. We have intensified the fight against HIV and Aids, declared a TB emergency, turned around child mortality and many other challenges, all this while the DA closed much-needed facilities such as GF Jooste Hospital.
Corruption and accountability
We will vigorously implement anti-corruption programmes to identify and deal with cases of fraud and corruption. Municipal officials and councillors are prevented from doing business with municipalities. Our councillors will sign performance agreements so we can keep them accountable at all times. The DA has made much noise about Nkandla, but it is responsible for the multimillion rand Filcon construction scandal and, most recently, the controversial planned sale of the former Tafelberg school site in Sea Point.
Housing
The DA government has a backlog of more than 400 000 houses. When we take over we will accelerate the provision of houses for our people because we understand the value of having a home. We delivered more houses, built more than 16 000 RDP houses annually and electrified more townships. We will focus where we left off eight years ago by addressing the needs of informal settlements, residents and backyarders. As the ANC we will build social cohesion, trust and co-operation between communities.
Infrastructure and development
Our aim is to rid the city of its apartheid spatial planning and development to ensure integrated communities. We will cut out corruption and ensure smaller developers are not unfairly overlooked when tenders are awarded.
DA
Provincial leader: Patricia de Lille
With its election plan on track, their activists deployed and their message of hope and change being spread across the province, the DA is confident it will walk away victorious during the upcoming local government elections.
The party is pitching its service delivery track record - that DA-run municipalities and the city council are the best run in the country, despite the opposition”s narrative that the city is the most unequal and the DA only looks after the interests of the rich middle class while ignoring the sprawling townships where the poor majority live.
The DA said it was delivering better services to a greater percentage of people, with 67 percent of the city council’s budget spent on the poor.
DA provincial leader Patricia de Lille at the weekend stressed their services were of an equal standard for the rich and poor.
The DA conceded more still needed to be done, as it urged voters to keep them in power.
Councillor Anda Ntsodo outlined the party’s agenda.
Crime and policing
Policing is a national mandate, but the DA-run City of Cape Town offers support to community policing forums and we also have auxiliary services in the form of the law enforcement.
The police are under-resourced so we support them.
However, we cannot investigate crimes as that is a police competency.
Unemployment
Local government creates an enabling environment where business can grow to create jobs.
We build and maintain infrastructure so that business can use infrastructure to conduct its affairs.
We ensure there is water, electricity and broadband for communication use.
We have the bus-rapid transport (BRT) system to bring people closer to the economic hub and we are championing social development.
The municipality avails land, where developers can buy land to develop at a good price to boost business.
We do this in Atlantis, in an effort to establish a green industrial hub.
While the city council”s primary function is not that of an employer, it offers jobs in the form of its Extended PublicWorks Programme internships andlearnerships.
Service delivery
The DA-run city council is at more than 93 percent access to basic services and is the only metro that provides services to backyard dwellers. There is no area where people do not have access to water, sanitation and electricity.
The city council is driving clean environment campaigns and offers bins for recycling and composting for food gardens. The DA-run provincial government already supports 600 such local gardens.
Education
The Department of Early Childhood and Social Development has provided training to operators of crèches and early childhood development centres to ensure children from poor areas have a good start to their schooling.
The city council has an educational programme aimed at educating school girls about the risk of teenage pregnancy and the importance of staying in school.
Social welfare
Expanded Public Works Project funds allocated to the city council are being used to provide home-based care for the elderly and physically challenged.
We have drug rehabilitation centres in the Cape metro where youth are being assisted.
The DA said it would continue to call on the national government to increase the social grant and allocate an additional R2 billion to the budget spend for grants.
Health care
We have clinics in our poorer communities that roll out primary health care.
Clinics also have sou p kitchens for those patients who would otherwise take their tablets on empty stomachs.
Corruption and accountability
There is zero tolerance for corruption of any kind where the DA governs. The city council has hotlines where people can anonymously report corruption.
We are accountable to every citizen of the metro and we hold ourselves to a high standard.
Housing
We have many initiatives to support those who are waiting for a houses.
These include upgrading of informal settlements and services to backyard dwellers.
Those who do not qualify for a housing subsidy or a bond, can access social housing.
Infrastructure and development
We are expanding and upgrading our roads continuously. Where Metrorail is incapable of rendering its service due to vandalism, the MyCiTi bus service is made available for commuters to assist people in reaching their jobs.
Cope
Leader: Farouk Cassim
Crime and policing
Cope will address the issue of school drop-outs and the recruitment of minors as drug runners. We will create public-private skills centres, monitor entrances and exits at each residential area and use social media to provide information and pictures of criminal activities to a crime combating operation centre. We will establish street committees and undertake patrols. We will recruit police reservists in each area and insist on better police, while known criminals will be tagged so their whereabouts are known.
Unemployment
Skills development would be a priority, and the party would like to increase home-based shops since they actively promote social democracy. Cope is eager to see huge workshops built where artisans in impoverished areas can hire facilities and tools. It wants a cultural centre where communities can showcase their cultures, history and products.
Systemic poverty
Cope will encourage the twinning of disparate wards to allow ordinary citizens to practise Ubuntu and initiate a variety of upliftment initiatives for the poor. Urban agriculture, horticulture, bee keeping, recycling, forestry, environmental rehabilitation and artisanal activities will be actively supported.
Service delivery
Cope says professional planning services and alternatives must be provided to all communities. Each ward must have a say in how its allocation of the municipal budget is used. Harvesting of rain water must be financially supported as well as the use of solar energy for heating and lighting. The party wants greening, cleaning of the environment and infrastructure development to be fast-tracked.
Education
Educational institutions at all levels must be used optimally and should include night and weekend classes, distance learning and holiday classes to accelerate access to education. Cope wants all role-players to unite to make education interesting, relevant and uplifting.
Health care
Community health workers, with social workers, should routinely visit homes. Preventive medicine must have precedence over curative medicine. The creation and staffing of clinics should be the other side of the coin. Cope would like digital triage to be introduced so those needing urgent attention are given priority. Volunteers will work under qualified health professionals in a bid to relieve the work pressures.
Housing
Cope will pursue a Cape Town Declaration which defines human settlements as the totality of the human community - whether city, town or village - with all the social, material, organisational, spiritual and cultural elements that sustain it.
ACDP
Provincial leader: Grant Haskin
Crime
The ACDP, an alliance partner of the DA, said it would restore political relations with Minister of Police Nathi Nhleko and the police's structures to improve working operations between the city council and the police.
Unemployment
The party plans to work with the private sector towards providing skills training and mentorship programmes to entrepreneurs, with a special emphasis on empowering women and youth.
Systemic poverty
This requires a co-ordinated national response addressing all aspects including where and how poverty exists in relation to housing, education, transport, employment and economic opportunities.
Service delivery
We will relentlessly pursue the delivery, repairs and maintenance of basic services to all Cape Town households.
Social welfare
Cape Town is fast becoming an unaffordable city to live in and the DA has ignored pleas from the ACDP and communities that these increases are economically draining to households.
Health care
We will ensure that clinics are elderly- and disabled-friendly, well stocked, expertly staffed and service oriented.
Corruption and accountability
As leaders of integrity we treat every political party, community and organisation with respect, dignity and honesty.