The master of anti-transformation finally comes to the fore: Carlisle presided over the worst assault on transformation over past four years under DA rule

Robin Carlisle, the Rip van Winkle of transformation has finally come to the fore. Under the ANC government from 2004 to 2009 he earned somewhat of a reputation as a pit-bull in the chamber, a Chihuahua at Scopa and a poodle in the corridors of the provincial parliament. Since 2009 though, probably no one in the entire DA administration has outdone Carlisle as the master of anti-transformation.

Since 1994 the ANC government has gone to great lengths to ensure that an enabling environment is created to facilitate transformation, economic redress, skills transfer and meaningful participation in the mainstream economy.

It is the responsibility of Provincial Government to implement such policy, yet Carlisle has single-handedly killed off more black contractors, black SMME's and women entrepreneurs through his reverse empowerment of the privileged white companies; under his watch! He put an end to Mama's specials in the property development sector. Under his watch road-construction only goes to the privileged few; property leases are lapped up by well-heeled mainly white privileged property companies; and the empowerment indicators and that of women has suffered severe reversals. This has resulted in the ANC being inundated with complaints and calls for intervention.

The ANC will therefore be convening an Imbizo for Black Property Developers, Black and Women Construction companies, Black entrepreneurs, contractors and other affected parties to engage on this crisis and consider what corrective measures to institute when the ANC is in power again in 2014.

Carlisle is downright anti-transformation. Under the ANC government tenders were awarded to the tune of R1 billion for the construction of two hospitals - one in Mitchells Plain and the other in Khayelitsha. The tender specifications were very clear and required local spend HDE/HDI of at least 30 percent of those two areas of the real monetary value in a 5 km radius.

Just that component would have amounted to an investment in the local economies of the areas surrounding Mitchells Plain and Khayelitsha of no less than R350 million! Carlisle must account for how those millions got to Constantia and Blouberg and explain why less than 10 percent of the empowerment target was achieved?

He deflects attention away from the DA's dismal record of transforming the ownership patterns in the economy by citing the biggest leases in the CBD. Only he believes his foolishness. Why doesn't he disclose the total spend on leases and then reveal the ‘five biggest items' as a percentage of that total? Why doesn't he aggregate the lifecycle of the leases and say for how long the same old white cronies have benefitted from state-leasing and how much the state has spent on those leases?

Take it a step-further: Carlisle must say why, when there is such an immense backlog of housing amounting to nearly half a million units, he has failed to develop the prime hectares of land in Tokai, Constantia, Pinelands and Bellville for public housing. Whose interests is he protecting or are the hectares of alien pine more valuable to him than the pressing housing needs, the longstanding restitution demand and the imperative of redress.

What has Carlisle has done to leverage the nearly R50 billion property portfolio over which he presides for the benefit of the historically disadvantaged? Carlisle and the DA fail to recognise - or should one say refuse to acknowledge - that unless the majority of our people become active in the economic mainstream we shall never achieve the full potential that this Western Cape holds. An equal opportunity society without restitution, redress and transformation is merely shifting the deck chairs on a sinking ship.

We challenge Carlisle to make a full disclosure of all property deals over the past four years and give him seven days to tell us who the companies are, what the empowerment status of each company is, duration of each lease agreement, empowerment status of the lawyers and conveyance agents are, and what the empowerment status of each of the estate agents are. We are confident that our position will be vindicated that Carlisle has regressed the transformation agenda. On the contrary he has firmly entrenched mainly white property owners. Carlisle and Zille's DA must stop bringing back Apartheid and protecting the interests of the mainly white privileged class.

Statement issued by Marius Fransman, ANC Western Cape leader and Deputy Minister for International Relations and Cooperation, October 17 2013

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