The real Cape Town story

The DAs claims that Cape Town is an example of good governance and service delivery does not bear up to scrutiny.

Its assertion that it has rescued the City of Cape Town from a "patronage system" and applied the philosophy of an "Open Opportunity Society for All" is not borne out by its track record.

Its own DA local government MEC Anton Bredell's municipal score card makes this admission. According to the Western Cape Extraordinary Gazette of December 2010, he has scored five ANC municipalities on the five key national performance indicators as follows:

ANC governed Cape Winelands-  3/3

ANC Knysna - 2, 9/3

ANC Breede River/Winelands - 2,7/3

ANC Bitou - 2,4/3

ANC Central Karoo - 2,4/3

DA-led Cape Town - 1,9/3!!!

Overall five ANC municipalities in the Western Cape have beaten the DA-run City of Cape Town:

DA rule in the City since 2006 has been marked by the following;

• Huge rates and service charges increases.
• Poor service delivery in key areas such as housing, electricity and sanitation.
• The now infamous open toilet saga in Makhaza.
• The violence against residents across the Cape Flats including Hangberg, where four people lost an eye each.
• Poor management of finances with huge overspending on the Cape Town stadium, excessive use of deviations and under-expenditure of budgets.
• Gross neglect of infrastructure which has resulted in, among other things, injury and death to staff members and sewerage spilling out into backyards.
• A failed BRT project.
• A staff complement who are demotivated and demoralised, as a result of poor management.
• A lack of commitment to the country's transformation imperative.
• Various violations of good governance principles.

The Gini coefficient is commonly used as a measure of the inequality of income or wealth. In an article published on page 11 in the Cape Times of 21^st October 2008, David McDonald states that Cape Town has "one of the worst urban Gini coefficients in the world". He states that Cape Town "is one of the most unequal cities in the world - perhaps the most unequal city in the world".

This huge inequality has been brought about by a range of historical factors. The point is that the DA has no plan to deal systematically with this inequality. In fact, the unfortunate picture that has emerged is of a party committed to maintaining and entrenching this inequality.

Here are some irrefutable facts about the City of Cape Town between 2006 and 2011, the period of DA rule.

There have been crippling rates and service charge increases

The City of Cape Town increased rates by 45% in the last five years, while inflation for the same period was 33%. In other words if your rates bill was R1 000 in 1996, it will be R1 527 today. The electricity increases have been even more crippling because the City has further increased local service charges by more than inflation. If you paid R500 for electricity when the DA took over the City, you will be paying about double that today. Water costs have gone up by 55% and sanitation by 50%. This has caused untold suffering for the poor in our City.

People sit with huge water and electricity bills they cannot afford to pay. The DA has cut or restricted water flow to 13 250 homes in the last seven months and cut electricity to 12 820 families. Warning ("Pink") letters have been issued and legal action has become hallmarks of DA rule. The table below shows figures for the past one and a half years:

Finances have been poorly managed

Under-expenditure of Budgets

Although the City increases its rates and tariffs annually in order to grow its revenue, it routinely under spends.  The capital expenditure for 09/10 was 83% (R4.68bn) but 17% (almost R1bn) was unspent. The AG, in the annual report, stressed that the "city has not fully achieved the service delivery objectives." The bulk of this money was spent on the Green Point Stadium, which means that very little capital funds was spent on delivery for the poor.

Bond Finance:

This is part of the City's R7bn Domestic Medium term budget meant to fund major infrastructure services & projects. Bond issue is a form of borrowing. Only Cape Town and Johannesburg have raised funds in this way. Cape Town has taken out a R2bn loan over 15 years at considerable financial risk to the City.

Cape Town stadium costs

At the design stage of the stadium, Helen Zille stated that the City would not spend a cent more than R400m of Cape Town ratepayers' money on the stadium. The City spent in excess of R1bn. The final stadium cost was around R4.4 billion, almost three times the City's initial estimate of R1.4bn.

Deviations

Over a two year period the City of Cape Town approved R2.5bn in deviations. Deviations took place in 2008/9 (R1bn) 2009/10 (R1bn) and the current year (already R500 000 000) When deviations are used, the tender procedures are bypassed. Deviations on such a large scale point to incompetence in management and planning. They generally favour existing contractors and service providers, mitigating against equity. The City has no database that records sole suppliers so that ‘sole' remains for many years.

Integrated Development Plan

The budget is poorly aligned to the IDP. The IDP does not speak to transformation and development. It does not address or seek to overcome the legacy of past inequalities and divisions in our society. The ‘shared economic growth and development focus area' of the IDP has been one-sided. The city's budget is directed disproportionately to the wealthier parts of the city, promoting private development interests, while resources to meet the needs of the poor (the shared element of growth) have been limited to a trickle-down effect.

Job creation for the poor is not targeted but relies on indirect benefits of tourism and investment. In the past year, the City has only created 10 000 jobs compared to the 150 000 of the City of Johannesburg. The city itself has no plans to create jobs. Too much of the city's budget is spent on support and administrative services rather than the departments that deliver services directly to the people.

The budget allocates R3.340bn for Corporate and financial services and City Management. Only half of that, R1.613bn is allocated to Health, Housing and Economic and Social development.

Human Rights abuses against the poor and vulnerable

The most widely known human rights abuses were directed at the people of Makhaza and Hangberg. The open toilet saga in Makhaza took another turn last week when the Cape High Court ruled that the City's action were unconstitutional and violated no fewer than six Constitutional provisions of the Bill of Human Rights.

In September 2010 in Hangberg, four people were partially blinded and many others injured during clashes between the Metro police and local residents over housing.

A growing list of human rights abuses committed by municipal law enforcers has been recorded.

• In June 2010, protesting people sitting in a Makhaza road were shot at close range with rubber bullets. Several were injured.
• In July 2010 in Du Noon, 250 women only protected by blankets were shot for complaining about raw sewage regularly running in their streets. Many were injured.
• In March this year, 10 people in Elsies River were wounded with rubber bullets. Three people were hospitalised. A man with disabilities limping away was hit twice in the back.
• Earlier this year, a girl of four was wounded in Nyanga by a rubber bullet when law enforcement officials claimed to be clamping down on a taxi strike.
• By laws have been adopted which have been followed by campaigns to "clean up" the city and other historically white areas of vulnerable jobless and homeless people.

Added to this pitiful picture is the fact that the Metro police college is in a complete shambles. There are no resources and no budget for training.

Transformation and equity gains have been reversed under DA rule

Various trends, statements and practices indicate a lack of understanding and support for transformation in the DA led municipality. These include: 

• The statement by the Mayco member JP Smith that he would not send more Metro police to the strife-torn area of Khayelitsha because "they don't pay rates", which is symptomatic of an apartheid mindset.  

• The fact that DA councillors lobby vigorously for funds to combat the baboon problem in the South while turning a blind eye to the scourge of rats on the Cape Flats, is another example. The budget for baboon management was R1.2 million in the 2008/9 financial year and R4.4 million the following year. This year it has shot up to R6.9 million and next year it will be in the region of R9.44 million.  

• The City of Cape Town has pushed for a range of by-laws such as the Nuisance by-law to clear the CBD and other elite areas of the poor and destitute.

• The Green Point Promenade received a R37 million Capital allocation while Atlantis received nothing for the current financial year. 

• The mayoral committee (MAYCO) consists of seven white, four coloured and no African representative.  

• The Executive Management team consists of six white, two coloured and two African members.

• At a professional level, whites are hugely over-represented hugely. The number of white males represented in this category is 699, 518 above the City's own target of 181. They outnumber coloured males by more than 200 and African males by more than 550.  

• Four of the six black executives that were employed when the DA took power were subsequently purged.

The figures below show the slow pace of transformation with regard to achieving equity. Coloureds and Africans are poorly represented at the top of the ladder and hugely over-represented in the lower ranks. In the unskilled sector, both Coloureds and Africans are over-represented by 100%.

Failure to deliver adequate basic services

Across the range of municipal services the DA-led City of Cape Town has either failed to deliver at all or has delivered at a lower standard in communities on the Cape Flats compared with the standards set in established suburbs of the City. The following are examples of inferior service delivery:

a) Sanitation

More than half a million people in Cape Town do not have proper access to basic sanitation. This is not reported in any of the City's official reports. The City does not openly report this figure, preferring to distinguish between 47 650 households which have no form of sanitation and 85 500 that have some form of sanitation that is not considered a basic form of sanitation. However, in its 2008/9 annual report, the City acknowledges that 226 985 people do not have access to, "a minimum standard of service". The Social Justice Coalition (SJC) booklet on "Clean and Safe Sanitation Campaign" states that the real figure is close to 500 000 people. Although the DA claimed that the City had met a norm of 1 toilet for every 5 households in informal settlements, the reality according the Social Justice Coalition is that "the ratio is 12 households per toilet. In some areas, the ratio is between 100 to 150 people making use of a single toilet"

Given the inadequate sanitation and cleansing facilities in informal areas, the adjacent receiving waters and rivers are often polluted with sewerage and debris, which is reported regularly at the monthly Transport, Roads and Major Projects Portfolio Committee.

b)  Electricity

2009 / 2010 - Only 3694 informal houses connected and 1371 formal low cost houses connected.

2010 / 2011 - To date, only 490 informal houses connected and 830 formal low cost houses connected.

These figures are way behind the 9,100 non-subsidised connections that were made in 2004, before the DA took over the City of Cape Town.

 Inadequate and inefficient maintenance and asset management strategy has led to very dangerous failures of medium voltage and other equipment on the network often with catastrophic consequences. This has placed both staff and communities at risk.

Free Basic Electricity (FBE) is intended to assist those residents who cannot afford to purchase electricity. The way the City of Cape Town applies this process, disadvantages poor residents who often have big households and thus high consumption. They thus do not benefit from the criteria that consumers who use 450 kWh per month (averaged over a 12 month period) are deemed to be deserving of FBE. Consumers, who are not indigent, often benefit from this arrangement.

Ineffective infrastructure management within Electricity is placing electricity distribution assets at serious risk, as evidenced by the chronic deterioration of electrical sub stations and related equipment in both residential and commercial areas. Over the last five years, the City has had to deal with serious damage to infrastructure as a result of malfunctioning medium voltage equipment. Tragically this has also led to serious and debilitating injury to electricity workers and the death of one such worker, at the Naruna substation in Plumstead on 21 October 2007. 

The equipment failure led to an explosion and fire that resulted in the emergency hospitalisation of five electricity workers. Three were critically injured and one died. The then Mayor of Cape Town Helen Zille publicly promised a full scale investigation into the circumstances around and the cause of the tragic accident. The widow of the deceased worker has to date not been given the promised report into her husband's death.

 The ensuing investigation process raised some serious concerns. Their finding raised some doubt since it was inconsistent with the pattern of malfunctions of other similar substation equipment. The repeated allocation of tenders to the same manufacturers of this problematic equipment has to be questioned and investigated.

c) Land, Housing and Informal Settlements

Land

The DA-led City has failed to identify and release well-located municipally-owned land that could be released to relieve housing stress, yet there are substantial parcels of unused Council-owned land in close proximity to overcrowded housing areas, formal and informal, that should be considered for release. On the one hand the City has tried to conceal this ownership from communities (example Hillview near Muizenberg), while on the other, it has been anxious to sell open land to private developers for commercial purposes (example Princess Vlei).

Across the City there is well located land available. Identifying it and allocating it to meet current and future housing needs should be the starting point of any meaningful housing policy. Overcoming the legacy of apartheid inspired spatial planning and integrating the City in ways that is sustainable into the future requires the planned use of this land for social needs. It must not be hoarded by the City for solely private development and profit.

Housing

The City has a backlog of 400 000 houses but only delivers about 8 000 housing opportunities (a serviced site is not necessarily a house) a year and at this rate it will take more than 50 years to catch up. However, the backlog increases by 18 000 households a year. Every 10 households have seven other poor families living permanently with them. The city makes no space available outside poor and overcrowded suburbs for the growing population. The DA led City has been less than honest about City owned land, unused and unzoned, that could and should be released to meet housing needs. The continued overcrowding of people in poor communities does from time to time explode into protests and violence, such as in Hangberg.

Informal Settlements

About 150 000 families live in 227 informal settlements and 200 000 families in overcrowded housing or backyards. A Grand Master Plan by the DA in 2007 to upgrade the settlements came to a halt nine months later when then Mayor Helen Zille declared it a failure. Conditions remain bad with annual flooding in winter and fires that destroy shacks. Pilot areas have been identified to develop a new blueprint for the upgrade of settlements, but there has been no feedback as yet.

Since 2007, the City has allocated very little for the 227 settlements accommodating 500 000 people. This year's budget (2010/11) provided only R45m for services such as electricity, water and sanitation. This is only 1% of the annual capital budget for 20% of the metro population, and much of this comes from national treasury grants, not City resources.

In informal settlements where the City acts it provides the nationally legislated short term emergency services at only the lowest rudimentary level. Once these are provided the City seems to believe its obligations to the poor are met.

Not only is medium and long term upgrading to decent permanent standards not planned for, but those rudimentary services installed deteriorate rapidly because of poor initial design and installation and inadequate ongoing maintenance and servicing. Blaming this on vandalism, as the DA does, is avoiding a municipal obligation to maintain decent services to all.

In the Department's Risk Management Register, reported to the city's portfolio committee in May 2011, the directorate for Roads and Storm Water identified inadequate provision for roads and storm water systems for informal settlements.

Backyarders:

Since 2006, the City has not taken any steps to resolve the massive problem of backyard dwellers. Only this year, on the eve of the local elections, has the city allocated a totally inadequate budget for upgrading services to backyarders. 

c) Cleansing

Area cleansing is still a major challenge in poor areas as rubbish piles up and collection is inadequate in informal settlements and townships. Instead the DA has cut the budget for refuse removal and area cleaning services in informal settlements by R26m, (from R71 500 000 to R45 434 621). This is far less than what is required and only ad hoc services are delivered. Provision of area cleaning services in disadvantaged formal areas was cut by R55,44m (from R90m to R34 560m).

The DA has only now as an election strategy allocated R13,5m to area cleaning as part of the Mayor's Clean-up Campaign. This is a once-off allocation and will not be repeated in the new financial year after the election.  The elite areas continue to receive better services. City staff members are used to clean up the wealthy areas whereas contract staff are used to clean the poor areas but there is poor monitoring performed by the city. Hence contracted companies get away with poor performance.

The City has neglected infrastructure in poor areas

Although the DA is investing in roads and infrastructure, the focus is on the developed areas and not in the underdeveloped poorer areas. No attempt is made to arrest the decay of Mew Way road which is an important arterial road within the Khayelitsha road network.

Internal roads in areas such as Elsies River, Nyanga, Gugulethu and Ottery are still made of sand, gravel and half-made concrete surfaces, which are filled with potholes and in state of deterioration.

Sewerage systems have deteriorated to a point of collapse in many townships. In areas such as Gugulethu and Nyanga, sewerage spills directly into the yards of people, when the system fails. No budget is provided to address this problem. Only adhoc repairs are done. Some blocks of flats in Gugulethu should be declared unfit for human habitation.

• The City has no city wide maintenance strategy which could result in unnecessary loss (AG)
• Lack of strategic plan for landfill sites - a very serious and challenging issue for city. 

Electricity infrastructure has not been maintained, with considerable risks for municipal workers and the public (see section under electricity above).

Major City projects funded by National government

Funding for many major projects in the City has come from National government.

The table below reflects the capital budget and contributions by National and Provincial governments:

Upgrading of Council Units

National Government has provided over R1bn for upgrading Council Units during two financial years, 2010 to 2012.

Urban Renewal Project

The national government has provided funding through the Presidency for the Mitchells Plain and Khayelitsha urban nodes from 2002. Almost R123,8m has so far been received. Departments have been reluctant to champion these projects at a senior level. Politically the DA has had a lukewarm approach to these programmes.

This has resulted in unspent funds in each financial year. Only R57,4m has been spent to date. The following projects have not been implemented: Vuyani gateway Node development;  Khayelitsha training centre Upgrade; Lookout hill tourism facility, Monwabisi resort chalets Upgrade, Blue waters resort.                                           

No change in infant mortality in the last five years

The DAs figures on the infant mortality rate in the city have already been laid bare as, at worst, patently false, at best, a substantial misrepresentation of the facts.

The party claimed that it has "improved public healthcare, cutting the infant mortality rate from 25.2 in 2003 to 20.8 in 2009 and achieving an 80% TB cure rate, the highest in the country. It further went on to say that "The City's Infant Mortality Rate improved from 25.2 in 2003 to 20.8 in 2009...."

The SJC pointed out in a letter to the media: "Infant mortality for the city is the same in 2006, the year the DA took power, and in 2009: 21 per 1,000. There was a decline from 2003 to 2007 from 25 to 20 but this appears to have stabilised."

The SJC further states: "According to data presented by the City of Cape Town in November 2010, infant mortality in Khayelitsha dropped from 42 per 1,000 in 2003 to 35 in 2009. But it also shows that in the year the DA took over the city in 2006, infant mortality had already dropped to 31. It then dropped a little more in 2007 but then increased to 35 in 2009. This tells the opposite story to that of the DA's."

BRT an operational failure

The first phase of the City of Cape Town's BRT system (MyCiti) is being constructed in the affluent west coast suburbs. The poorer areas such as Atlantis and Du Noon are at the tail end of the phased construction and therefore when the system is proposed to be tested early in May 2011 from Bayside Mall in Blaauberg to the CBD the coloured and black commuters will be inconvenienced. Johannesburg's BRT (Rea Vaya) on the other hand operates from Soweto to the CBD. The original plan to use the Klipfontein Road Corridor as the main BRT route, which would have benefited poorer communities, was abandoned by the DA.

 The airport service does not operate as a BRT system. The shuttle service currently runs at a huge operating loss. Together with a free shuttle service between the Civic Centre and the Cape Town Stadium during events, the service cost the City more than R40m from December 2010 to the end of April 2011. The latest progress report states that 200 passengers per day use the shuttle, with a bus frequency of every 20 minutes. The first 12 metre bus leaves the Civic Centre at 04:00 and the last at 21:00. Similarly, the first bus leaving the Airport is 15:00 with the last at 23:00. In other words, the average passenger per BRT bus is about 5 to 6 people.      

The annual project operating deficit of the phase 1a is projected to be more than R120m per annum. Notwithstanding possible bus subsidy redistribution and help from the National Government, the projected shortfall is more than R45m which will most likely be funded by the ratepayers of Cape Town. The Chamber of Commerce has expressed its serious concern with the City's handling of the project and the operating deficit.

The City is negotiating three operating contracts with the taxi industry and Golden Arrow Bus Service (GABS). Failure to fully consult with Cape Town's taxi industry could jeopardise the R4.5bn project as was evident in the recent taxi strike. The City had an opportunity to prevent GABS from continuing with their decades of bus monopoly. As a City that does not hesitate to use expensive legal service, the City has not demonstrated the political will required to end this monopoly.

Principles of transparent and clean government damaged

Patterns of corruption, irregularities, cronyism and nepotism have emerged in the last few years, under DA rule. Here follow a few examples: 

DA councillor Charlotte Tabisher was dismissed for corruption. Two other councillors, Wilma Brady (forged a letter to allow illegal building on state land) and Frank Martin (lead illegal house grab), were subjected to disciplinary action for corruption and only got a slap on the wrist.

A R400 million rand tender awarded for the Integrated Rapid Transport System in Cape Town was described in the latest issue of Noseweek as "very fishy". Noseweek states: "Late last year the City illegally awarded the contract for a R400 million tender to a Johannesburg company, ICT -Works, for the IRT system - even though their bid was disqualified in the first round of adjudication."

Lungile Dhlamini was headhunted for the position of Utility Services Executive Director. There was no competitive process. The previous Executive Director, appointed during the ANC's tenure, was kicked out. The latter had received various awards for his work.

The DA Chief Whips husband was employed by the City and MP Denise Robertson's husband is employed in the IT department.

A whistleblower on corruption, Traffic Officer Cottle, was harassed and intimidated to the point where he was forced to resign his job. The City offered no help and did not investigate Cottle's complaints that his life was being made a misery by the very officials whom he complained about.

The current spokesperson for the City, Kylie Hatton, was given a position in the communications department without a competitive process. She was initially a political employee in Belinda Walkers office.

The current DA candidate for City Mayor, Patricia De Lille has been accused of widespread nepotism by former members of her party. It is alleged that a) she employed her son, Alistair head of finance for the ID in parliament; b) instructed ID councillors in Theewaterskloof to appoint her sister Veronica as area manager responsible for Riviersonderend; c) ensured the appointment of her sister, Sarah Paulse's, son in the Witzenberg Mayor's office as strategic manager; d) appointed her brother-in-law, Vern Jeffreys, as Party-Director in the Provincial Legislature, and; e) appointed another brother-in-law as her driver.

City of Cape Town lags behind other municipalities

Other areas of operation where the City of Cape Town under the DA has performed poorly are:

In the past year, Cape Town has created only 12 000 jobs while Johannesburg has created 150 000

While the City of Cape Town boasts about its housing delivery record of a mere 8,000 housing opportunities, the integrated development project of Cato Manor which includes the upgrading of several informal settlements, new incremental housing projects as well as social housing, is said to deliver some 25,000 housing opportunities within 5km of Durban's central business district.

In the period 2004 - 2009, the highest rates of economic growth over the period were in the cities of Johannesburg and Tshwane.  In the same period, the report shows that all three Gauteng metros had a higher rate of export growth than Cape Town - as did Mangaung.

The State of Cities Report points out that in the period 2002-2009:

• Housing conditions appear to have improved in the Gauteng metros and eThekwini over the period but have deteriorated somewhat in Cape Town. 
• That Cape Town alone of all the metros and secondary cities showed a decrease in the percentage of the population with access to electricity. 
• That Cape Town was the only metro which showed an increase in the number of residents with bucket sanitation or no sanitation. In 2009 the proportion of households in the Gauteng metros and eThekwini with basic sanitation was only 1% compared to 6% in Cape Town and 3% in the secondary cities.

Issued by the ANC Western Cape, May 10 2011

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