Cape Town - The national government gave the provincial government a tongue-lashing on Tuesday in the second day of court proceedings in the case involving the controversial sale of the Tafelberg site in Sea Point.
Advocate Ismail Jaime, who represents
the Human Settlements Department, argued that the province failed to co-operate
and co-ordinate with national and local
government when it decided to sell the
Tafelberg property.
“We are not saying that with every
provincially-owned land they have to tell us; however, given the uniqueness of this case, there should have been consultation under these circumstances,” Jamie said.
He said peculiar events had played out in the lead-up to the sale of the land.
“You don’t have two provincial Cabinet meetings to make the decision to sell land if it’s an ordinary sale. The sale of Tafelberg was not an ordinary sale. You don’t get over 4 000 public submissions about an ordinary sale,” he said.
Reclaim the City and legal centre
Ndifuna Ukwazi are challenging the decision
by the provincial government to sell
the well-located Tafelberg property to
a private buyer, the Phyllis Jowell Jewish Day School, in the face of a housing affordability crisis.
Reclaim the City, which presented its case on Monday, argued that both the City and province failed to comply with their obligations to address spatial apartheid as set out in the Constitution.
The Human Settlements Department has launched a separate application against the province which is being heard together with Reclaim the City’s application.
“It is clear that the province’s decision was based on the short-term capital injection. This carrot of cash drew the province into selling the land and ignoring all its other constitutional obligations,” Jaime said.
Reclaim the City activists seen outside the Western Cape High Court where the Tafelberg site case is being heard. Video: Marvin Charles/Cape Argus
During the court proceedings questions arose about the province’s failure in December 2015 to publish a notice in Xhosa of its intention to dispose of Tafelberg.
Advocate Thabang Masuku, who also represents the Human Settlements Department, said the notice was published only in English and Afrikaans and excluded prospective Xhosa buyers. “I don’t understand how the province did not concede. It's unclear on why an invitation that could attract Xhosa people excluded them.”
Advocate Emma Webster, who represents the Social Housing Regulatory Authority, a statutory body created in terms of the Social Housing Act to promote social housing development, said the province’s decision to sell the piece of land should be set aside because it made its decision in the mistaken belief that Sea Point did not fall within a restructuring zone.
“Even if province and the City genuinely believe that Sea Point did not fall within a restructuring zone, the City could have approached the department to have the restructuring zones changed,” she said.
Education advocacy group Equal Education, which has been admitted as a friend of the court, seeks to draw attention to the interrelated nature of the rights to housing and basic education. It said the prevailing inequalities in access to housing in Cape Town had material, knock-on effects on pupils’ access to basic education in Cape Town.
The case continues today.
@MarvinCharles17