ANC delivers, DA only delivers lies; Stats tells different story: Our hard effort and our word systematically undervalued
How ironic that the DA leader, Ms Helen Zille has based the entire DA campaign on a falsehood. Over and over again, the people of Cape Town and South Africa have been told of the wonderful performance of the administration of the City of Cape Town. The truth is that City of Cape Town came last in the DA's own assessment. Why was this not brought to the attention of the public?
I am referring to the Consolidated Annual Municipal Peformance Report, released by the DAs own MEC and gazetted in December 2010. This reveals that several ANC run municipalities in the Province have performed significantly better than the City of Cape Town in key areas.
On four of five performance indicators (rigorous analysis of social trends, clear development strategy, alignment with national and provincial programmes, and targeted basic services, Cape Town scores only two out of three - less well than ANC run Breede River/Winelands, Cape Winelands District, Central Karoo, Drakenstein, Hessequa and Witzenberg, all of which score three out of three on at least two of these indicators.
On the fifth indicator, community involvement in planning and delivery, the city scores a damning one out of three, compared with Breede River/Winelands, Drakenstein and Hessequa's three out of three. In terms of provincial overall performance, the DA's own minister was able to give the DA run City of Cape Town a score of only 1.9/3, well behind ANC run Cape Winelands (3/3) Knysna (2.9 out of 3), Breede River/Winelands (2.7 out of 3) Bitou and Central Karoo (both 2.4 out of 3)."
There are some South Africans who are determined to take us back to the era of apartheid. Unfortunately these include some political parties who are bent on hardening and polarizing society along racial lines through cheap politicking. How sad that they are prepared to go to the extent of misrepresenting the facts about Cape Town.
Not only do we have this misrepresentation, we also have our heroes and heroines being appropriated. Suddenly these symbols are their own
Where was the DA or its predecessor, the Progressive Federal Party when state sponsored violence against our heroes like Hector Peterson where executed and when the parliaments, in which they happily embraced and were voted into exclusively by, white South Africans, passed repressive laws and barbaric racial statutes? Why did they not choose to stand side by side with the black majority who protested against these Acts? What has suddenly made them change their hearts - or have they changed? Me wonder!
Let not our people be fooled by the promise of better run municipalities post these elections. The plight of the poor and blacks in the Cape Town Municipality has not improved during the years of their rule. A simple policy such as an indigent policy to assist those households that do not have an income is evidently lacking in all municipalities run by the DA. It is only the City of Cape Town that has this so-called indigent policy. I term it so-called because in the context of Cape Town, the indigent policy is the brain child of the ANC-led municipality resolution. Of course, the ANC created a good pro-poor foundation for service delivery in Cape Town and Western Cape in general. In such municipalities today the eviction of poor people who are not able to pay for services is the norm, whereas many of our municipalities (ANC run) continue to find meaningful solutions to the plight of the poor alongside the provision of basic services to the people.
In the same token, what do you say to the people of Houtbay? The DA goes around and posture of good service delivery and even using the MR Tatane issue without considering what is on their backyard i.e. the erection of the "apartheid-Israeli Palestine wall" between the extremely poor and super rich communities of Houtbay in Cape Town. That is what our people are telling us in Hout Bay.
The elections and the necessary campaigning by political parties must not blind us to the immediate task at hand. We must address the challenge defined by the HSRC in its 2009 report, of "how to extend the ties and solidarities across and between social classes, language and religious groups and ‘races'.
Therefore, the task of the democratic movement and our government remains one of fostering social cohesion in our society along with nation-building and moral regeneration. This cannot be done and achieved successfully when the platform in which this occurs is fraught with pretences and the claiming of easy victories by political parties such as the DA and AfriForum.
In terms of their desperate attempts to claim our monuments and heroes; members of the DA and AfriForum rejoice and engage on Facebook to demonise African Leadership and everything it represents. They go on to find fault in every good that black people do like bringing to the fore programmes to better the lives of millions of South Africans. They go all-out to rejoice and throw parties when an African is on Trial, and they will try him/her and bring verdict of "guilty as charged" even before the courts could conclude on such matters. They take all success stories of black people in general and Africans in particular as corruption; if not, as "tenderpreneurs" corrupt benefits or "jobs for palls/cronies". What a shame?
Nobody bothered to question the basis of Ms Zille's campaign. It was just assumed that municipalities run by her were good and those run by the ANC was bad. Her word was given greater value than our word.
The truth is that the ANC government has managed this country's economy well and has broadly managed its finances well. We have problems in different local municipalities that we have identified and are working on. The truth is that just last year South Africa was recognised as the best country in the world with regard to the transparency of public finance management. This was not an award for one little city but an award for management of the entire country.
The ANC led government must unashamedly continue to take active steps to improve the quality of life of the poor, the majority of whom are black. It must ensure that the long-term effects of its programmes result in allowing people to have their place in society in ways that are not defined by race.
Citizens in their own right as individuals and through organs of civil society must work hard to encourage the emergence of a common South African identity. This common identity is one where we all should see each other simply as South Africans and nothing else. The achievements we have made as a nation over the last 17 years are no small achievements and we must all be proud of them and together tackle the difficulties.
Songezo Mjongile is the Provincial Secretary of the African National Congress (ANC) Western Cape. This article first appeared in the Cape Times.
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