CAPE TOWN - Politics in Cape Town and the Western Cape are maturing.
For 15 years, the DA has relied on the narrative that it is preferable to the ANC – a low bar.
But in this election, for the first time, it is being held to account for its delivery record.
The truth is that Cape Town has been “ahead” of the rest of the country since the birth of democracy.
This is not thanks to the ANC or the DA, whatever they may say. It is a fact of history. Cape Town was slightly better off than the rest of the country by crooked apartheid design.
Two related factors were at play: First, the size of the population was controlled by prohibiting most Africans from living here.
And, second, because the apartheid government spent less money, per capita, on black citizens, neighbourhoods and amenities, Cape Town received a slightly higher proportion of the national budget.
As a consequence, a higher proportion of Western Cape citizens had access to housing and basic services such as water, sewerage and electricity, and a little more money was spent on education, health care, social services, etc.
The margins were slight – of course, the overwhelming majority of State spending was directed at the white population.
Another consequence of what the then government termed influx control, and the relatively manageable and stable population size in the south-western corner of the country, was it enabled the City of Cape Town to develop slightly better systems of governance and delivery.
In 1994, when South Africa held its first democratic election, Nelson Mandela’s ANC cruised to power across the country – except in the Western Cape, where the majority of citizens voted for the old apartheid National Party.
Two years later, the Rev William Bantom (New National Party) was named Mayor of Cape Town following the first local government election.
As South Africa fell in love with Nelson Mandela, the National Party unravelled. It led to the ANC briefly taking the reins of the City (2002-2006) before being swept aside by a tidal wave called Helen Zille (then in full pomp and glory).
Fifteen years later, few will recall that it was under Nomaindia Mfeketo of the ANC, before Zille, that the City of Cape Town obtained its first unqualified audit, in 2004.
The reason this is largely forgotten is because of heavy DA investment in the narrative that clean audits in the Western Cape are what distinguishes it from the dirty ANC.
It’s a good and popular argument; the ANC’s integrity has been poisoned by corruption.
But no number of clean audits can disguise the fact that the Western Cape, and Cape Town, is under unprecedented strain.
No number of clean audits can paper over the utter collapse of Cape Town’s sewerage system in many communities over the past few years – infrastructure requires maintenance.
Clean audits don’t deliver new homes faster; over the past few years, housing delivery in Cape Town has been dramatically cut back.
Clean audits don’t equate to clean streets in black communities, or clean water all people need to live.
Clean audits alone are not good enough.
The people need clean audits and service delivery.
Clean audits and a clear programme of action to prioritise lifting all Capetonians above the threshold of bare subsistence.
A pragmatic programme based on the reality that the inequality with which we live is unsustainable – it’s a rubber band waiting to snap. And it is a deep injustice.
Ten years ago, when Patricia de Lille was elected Mayor of Cape Town, among her first actions was to initiate a research project, executed by the University of the Western Cape, to identify the most impoverished communities and their development needs. Funding was then allocated to a Mayoral Redress Project to address these priorities, but it was never easy to persuade conservatives in the caucus to actually spend the money as intended.
Given the present state of the economy, the rate of unemployment and the extent of misery in our city, properly implementing the Mayoral Redress Project is today a greater priority than ever.
Since agreeing to represent GOOD as its mayoral candidate for Cape Town, I have visited dozens and dozens of communities.
I didn’t plan things this way, but have been overwhelmed by invitations from people who are desperate to be seen and heard. People whose living conditions have effectively stripped them of their inherent human dignity.
I have visited council flats that are so poorly maintained they are a health and safety risk.
I have visited old coloured townships such as Bonteheuwel and Hanover Park, which have become so densely populated that the bulk infrastructure has collapsed.
People in Delft who lost their little boy after he was crushed by a poorly-maintained piece of play equipment in a play park … People in Langa who cross the street on stepping stones to dodge the sewerage … People in Nyanga who live with overflowing portable toilets … People living in backyards, at the mercy of landlords for their water and electricity … People living in unspeakably poor conditions, in the mud, in shacks.
Those conditions directly threaten Cape Town’s long-term viability as a secure place to do business, to create jobs and to live.
But we don’t talk about that; clean audits are altogether safer ground.
The truth is, conditions for the overwhelming majority of Cape Town residents are no better than for Johannesburg or Durban.
Cape Town has frittered away the slender advantages it inherited from apartheid.
Instead of using that which it had as a foundation on which to develop a modern integrated city, it has left much of its infrastructure to rot.
The neglect has been exacerbated by Covid-19; less is being maintained than before, and the people have less money to fix anything themselves.
Ten years ago, when Patricia de Lille was elected Mayor of Cape Town, and I was elected as a city councillor, the DA we joined appeared to be a growing, non-racial force for post-apartheid justice. It was sadly not to be. We suffered many setbacks at the hands of our own caucus, and ultimately left the party and the City due to resistance to affordable housing projects in well-located areas in the inner-city.
Over the past few years, the pressures on Cape Town have steadily increased.
More and more people are attracted to the city, in the hope of economic opportunities, while less and less infrastructure is being maintained, fewer homes are being built – and raw sewage flows not only through potholed streets, but also into some of our most pristine and protected wetland areas.
This year, for the first time in living memory, the City of Cape Town didn’t implement the usual winter-readiness programme, which includes the creation of jobs to clear stormwater channels and drains. It has been a wet winter, and there’s been unprecedented flooding.
But the City didn’t fail to implement its plans to criminalise homelessness.
Frankly, a City government that prioritises the optics of chasing vulnerable people out of well-located suburbs over the delivery of services basic to the human condition to millions of citizens – while stridently reminding anyone who’ll listen that it is fantastic because it sometimes gets clean audits – is embarrassing and repulsive.
This year, for the first time, voters will hold the DA accountable not for its blaah-blaah, but for what it has actually delivered, and the fact that it has not improved the lives of the very people whose support it has until now taken for granted.
- Herron is Good Party mayoral candidate for Cape Town
Cape Times