AS THE president of the Cape Coloured Congress (CCC), Fadiel Adams is confidant that his party can introduce sweeping changes in the City’s administration.
That’s if the CCC gets an outright majority victory in the November 1 municipal elections.
Adams said the party was unapologetic about focusing solely on issues faced by coloured people as they had been “marginalised for 27 years” and “overlooked”.
“While we are a party that is willing to fight for equality for everyone we do not hide the fact that our focus is the coloured community. The coloured people have become poorer since the advent of Black Economic Empowerment (BEE),” said Adams.
He said the party’s manifesto also focused on land restitution as the forced removals due to Group Areas Act affected coloured people.
And as such the housing backlog would be their priority as he claimed “bias” in the allocation of houses.
“We've been fighting with the City to show us the housing allocation list. The coloured people are getting only 15% of the housing opportunities and that’s why they still live in backyards.”
In 2019 the Western Cape provincial housing backlog stood at more than half a million of which 365 000 applicants were in the Cape Town metro. The City believed that it would take 70 years to eradicate the backlog.
“How is it that grandmothers who have been on the waiting list for 35 years and are now living in backyards? We want corrective action,” said Adams.
He said restructured budgets would ensure that there is no disparity in the quality of municipal service rendered to people regardless of the neighbourhood they lived in.
Adams said would write off water and rates debts and “everyone would start from zero”.
“The strain of Covid-19 on the working class has been huge. Plus the City cannot charge Cape Flats residents the same rates as it does in the leafy suburbs.”
He also said that safety and security was also important for his party.
“We have three agencies, metro police, law Enforcement and traffic services. We will have to relook their budgets. Our communities are plagued with gangsterism - and it’s important that we use the budgets effectively.
“The City spent millions on sharp spotter in Hanover Park but only three arrests later. The decision makers do not live in the ghetto.”
He would also give drug addicts a chance to change their lives through rehabilitation so they could contribute meaningfully to the economy.
“I want Coloured people to understand that they control their own destiny and that the budget and resources allocated to our areas is a starvation diet.”
He said he would work with the provincial and national governments to look into “innovative ways” to improve education. He would also drive clean-up operations in neighbourhoods and invest in the infrastructure.
“We can't have children playing in squalor and sewer drains overflowing. People deserve dignified lives.”
In order to improve these conditions and deliver on the promises, Adams said he would need to trim the “operational budget”, cut back on the workforce and instil a new work ethos that focused on “delivery”.
“Some officials leave the offices at 12 noon and don't come to work on a Monday. This will have to change. We need to run the administration as a business and adopt business ethos.”