Our achievements in the first 100 days

Governing is always a long term project. We have to plan today for outcomes that may only make themselves plain in years to come. Through it all, a web of social factors may change that cause us to adjust our programmes so that, apart from unforeseeable deviations, we can maintain our overall trajectory.

This is a necessary imperative for those who wish to serve the present by planning for the future. As such, it can be difficult to measure success according to fixed markers. However, that is not to say we do not have some indicators of success.

In the political world, there is often a great deal of hype around the concept of ‘the first 100 days.' I do not necessarily attach as much value to this notion as others but I concede that it can be instructive to reflect on those ‘100 days' to focus the mind. After all, we must constantly evaluate ourselves and our performance. Given that we have reached the ‘100 days' milestone, we should pause and consider our successes, such as they are.

We were fortunate to come into government with a definite plan of action, embodied in our manifesto. That good fortune was bolstered by the overwhelming democratic mandate we received which compelled us to act decisively. We almost immediately passed a budget that continued with infrastructure-led growth and our objective of creating the economic enabling environment in which investment can be created and jobs can grow.

To maximise our use of resources, we reconstituted the Mayco. The new portfolios of Events, Marketing and Tourism, Economic, Environmental and Spatial Planning and Early Childhood and Social Development, are well underway with their work. We acted immediately to resolve some the situations that had given rise to controversy in the past so that we could all move forward together.

We enclosed the toilets in Khayelitsha with concrete. We are well-advanced in mediation efforts in Hangberg and have transferred council stock to 60 families to aid reconciliation. And we have renamed Eastern Boulevard after former president Nelson Mandela. That well-deserved honour for Madiba acts as a symbol of our unity in diversity and also the continuation of government, given that the renaming was a decision of the previous council implemented by the current one.

By the end of this year, Oswald Pirow Drive will be no more. Instead, we shall honour one of our most famous sons, Christiaan Barnard. Also by the end of this year, Chief Albert Luthuli and Kratoa will become permanent features of our city, forever reminding us of the rich nobility of spirit that also infuses our heritage.

We are taken this process of name changing forward. At the next council meeting, a motion will be put to council to rename Western Boulevard after Helen Suzman. And we have undertaken some of the major initiatives of our manifesto, pledges we reinforced the day we were sworn in.

We have been engaged in negotiations around the Economic Development Agency (EDA) for months. I am pleased to say that, by the end of this month, the adoption of the EDA will be brought to the council for debate. The EDA represents a new innovation for government in South Africa. Bringing together numerous stakeholders, including the City, the Province and private and public stakeholders, we shall forge a new economic strategy for this region.

For the first time, we shall leverage our strength as a region and develop our competitive advantages according to a consolidated plan of action that is motivated by future outcomes that will increase opportunities for our people. Those opportunities will create greater economic freedom. By so doing, we build a more inclusive city for ourselves and our children.

I am also satisfied with the status of the special projects I identified when I was inaugurated. The additional funding I allocated to the Violence Prevention through Urban Upgrading (VPUU) programme, which is generously funded by international donors, amongst others, is helping its roll-out. Having had great successes in Khayeltisha, it will be established in Manenberg, Hanover Park and Lotus Park by the end of this month.

The additional funding I gave to assisting homeless people is being used to bolster the Early Childhood and Social Development Directorate's Street People Programme. That programme is actively helping the most vulnerable people in our city.

The additional funding allocated to the apprentice programme is being used to help us train young artisans, in conjunction with educational establishments. Those artisans will find work with the City and, if they choose to do so, will use their skills in the private sector.

That training is becoming a model of innovative skills development in local government. We are on track to start appointing 90 new apprentices in November once all supply chain management requirements have been met. And the money allocated to backyarders is already being put to good use. Engineering surveys have been conducted in Hanover Park, Langa and Factreton.

These surveys assist us in getting a sense of the scale of services needed in communities that were previously neglected. This administration intends continuing them over the course of its term. But that is only one aspect of our backyarder strategy, which I recently mapped out in a productive session with representatives from backyarder communities around the city.

It is our intention to address this untold story of neglect in a dynamic programme of service delivery that is the first of its kind in South Africa. Next month, Factreton will act as the pilot for the roll-out of service sites that will provide structures containing a toilet, sink and external connections to electricity.

This is the first phase. We intend installing these facilities to communities that want them over the long-term. Unfortunately, given the complexity of housing funding, which comes largely from the national government, the backlog for housing remains extensive. But we do not believe that people should not get anything while they wait. Backyarders are part of our metro and we must do our duty to provide services to all who need them.

I believe that the backyarder strategy should be viewed as just one component of this administration's broader policy of social redress. By using the tools at our disposal, we can use our constitutional imperative to be the drivers of economic and social development to address the imbalances of the past.

We are doing that with backyarders. Where possible, we are also doing it with land claims being assessed by the city. We had a truly significant moment in council recently when we approved the sale of council-owned land in Claremont under assessed market value to settle a long-standing land claim. We were honoured to have the claimants with us.

We brought the people and government together that day and through the strength of our will to achieve social justice, we achieved something that will change the lives of families for generations to come. That day, I discussed the broader philosophy of redress as expressed through economic revitalisation. We believe that by providing the environment for opportunities, we can change communities and we have directed our resources to stimulate development.

This administration has approved the Atlantis revitalisation project that will see that often forgotten part of our metro being used as a target for green industries, industries that will be the economic drivers in the decades to come. Neglected in the past, we shall reposition Atlantis to benefit from the future.

We have also mapped out our intention to extend the IRT to the city's South-East by the end of 2013. By December 2013, an express service will link Khayelitsha and Mitchell's Plain with the CBD, changing people's lives. Opportunities mean little if people cannot access them. We can help them to do so.

Those connections must also be viewed through the prism of the 21st century. We have agreed, in our Mayco strategy sessions, to prioritise the roll-out of a broadband network that will fuel growth and inclusivity in this city, with a special focus on linking the city's South-East and so extending modern infrastructure where there was none before.

And we are also now ready to go to the public with our Integrated Development Plan (IDP). The IDP is a legislative requirement for municipalities in South Africa to map their development plans. As such, they can often become consumed by bureaucratic process.

We do not seek another layer of compliance measures. We seek a sophisticated guiding strategic vision. This is what we have endeavoured to achieve with the IDP.

For months, the Mayco and senior officials have been meeting to translate our electoral programme of action into policies of government. We have engaged, debated and considered our priorities.

At the end of this intense process, we finally have our coordinated plan ready to take to the public as part of our engagement with our citizens. The work that has gone into this plan will inform our government for the next five years. With larger strategies, such as the City Development Strategy, it will inform our priorities for the future.

The IDP will be the basic blueprint of our intentions as an administration, as an organisation and as an agent of delivery. There is indeed a great deal of hype over the first ‘100 days.' Because of the difference in perspectives, we sometimes do not see our own progress as others do. We have a particularly different view as government because, for us, these are very much projects in motion.

But beyond the hype, we are, after all, able to step back for a moment and take stock. That pause allows us to know whether we are doing what we set out to do, for our city and its people. We are on the right path.

This article by Patricia de Lille first appeared in Cape Town This Week: A weekly newsletter by the Executive Mayor of Cape Town

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