Many things were said this week about Freddie Adams' Freedom Day speech in the National Council of Provinces. Adams, an MP serving the NCOP on the Western Cape delegation, used this opportunity to highlight the plight of millions of citizens in the Province. One reader commented on the difference between Adams' speech and a similar speech made by DA parliamentary leader, Lindiwe Mazibuko; saying that Mazibuko's speech was conciliatory and that of Adams confrontational. The same reader suggests that Adams should learn from Mazibuko to be "more like our father Madiba".
I think that Adams' speech was quite good, and came at quite the right time. It is a fact that millions of our citizens in the Western Cape still not enjoy their human rights; they are denied these rights by the very DA, which has become a self-styled "champion of human rights and good governance".
The Western Cape expect another clean, unqualified audit by the Auditor-General this year. This has become their totem pole. And while we should applaud such an effort to be the leader of the campaign by the late Minister Sicelo Sicheka to have clean audits for all municipalities; one should also soberly examine what makes the Western Cape's achievement so special. Or, on the other hand, so despicable.
I am not going to overly concentrate on the Province as a whole. I want to use my hometown as an example, so people could get an understanding of the inequities that not only exists, but are endorsed and entrenched by the DA-led government.
Atlantis is a town on the northern boundary of the City of Cape Town. According to municipal figures, the town has a population of just over two hundred thousand. But that only takes into account the formal housing units that exist, with an addition of about ten percent of the real add-on population; i.e. those living in informal dwellings, including backyard dwellers.
According to combined Household Surveys of Stats SA over a period of eight years, the total population of Atlantis (including Mamre, Pella and Witsands) is estimated at just over 800,000. The town was an experiment of the Apartheid regime to relocate coloured people from formerly white areas, luring them to the town with promises of jobs and houses. The town was attached to an industrial area, to which business was lured by huge incentives.
The 1980's also saw a host of world events, including the Lebanon War, the multiple debt crises and the Iran-Iraq War, which had a negative effect on many businesses, including those in Atlantis, who suddenly found themselves without the lucrative allowances which the regime used to give them. One of these allowances they forfeited, was the transportation allowances, which basically covered their costs of transportation from Atlantis to the major distribution centres in Cape Town, including the airport and Cape Town Harbour. Oil prices soared at this stage, and this pushed up the price of production further. Many of these businesses closed shop, while others moved their operations closer to Cape Town, relocating to Epping, Athlone, Killarney and Montagu Gardens, and other areas. Some even left the province and the country altogether, as many of these "investors" were foreigners.
Today, over 75% of these business premises are still empty, making whole sectors in the Atlantis Industrial areas resembling ghost towns.
It is estimated by NGO's that Atlantis has an unemployment rate of 47%, well above the City, province and national standard. Of those who do have work, a massive number work outside Atlantis, and many are only casuals and employed by labour brokers. Up until 2006, various arms and structures of government were involved in seeking business involvement in the development of Atlantis. Last year, both President Zuma and Minister Ebrahim Patel visited Atlantis to see the extent of this "economic meltdown" in the area.
Sadly, the City of Cape Town and the provincial government was nowhere to be found. At this stage, neither have any plans at all to see Atlantis regaining some of its former "glory".
The town is further plagued by a plethora of social ills, which one could relate to the high unemployment rate there. Gangsterism, substance abuse and domestic violence are prevalent, and has became everyday reality for the citizens. The so-called drug busters, which the DA is so-o-o proud of, is only a Son story to the citizens of Atlantis. The social decay is also visible in the environment, with minimal services delivered by the City. Nothing extra is added, the recently completed housing development in Witsands was a project of when the ANC was in charge of the City still. The only other housing projects in Atlantis are by private developers.
On the other hand we have Dyunefontein, which is a white dominated area only a few kilometres south of Atlantis. But the difference could not be more apparent. Streets are regularly cleaned, by humans and machines. Every street has got a grassy open space for recreation, and you see people, even whole families, taking leisurely strolls in the streets in the evening, weather permitting. Although a host of private security companies operate in the area, the Metro police also does regular patrols. In stark contrast, citizens of Atlantis cannot take evening walks, even going to the shop is a hazard. And call the Metro police; whose eastern head quarters is in Atlantis - one can but try, nuh?
Now, the City has introduced the MyCiti bus service, and called the project the "Atlantis Integrated Rapid Bus Transit Corridor", but initially only took it as far as Table View, with later introduction of a connecting service to Sunningdale, Parklands and Blouberg, as far as Marine Drive. The infrastructure is only now being created for the service to be introduced in Atlantis by the end of the year; quite possibly next year only. Right now, the commuters are paying R10 a single trip from Cape Town to Table View, with an added R5 for the connecting trips, as mentioned before. Although the MyCiti service was supposed to be more affordable than the current service being rendered by Sibanye and Golden Arrow, commuters from Atlantis are paying less now for a trip to Cape Town than the commuters using MyCiti from Blouberg. If the service is to be extended to Atlantis, it means that they would pay double what they are now - something they can hardly afford. To me it is saying, quite clearly, that the MyCiti bus is not intended for the common black folk of Atlantis.
The type of money being spent by the City in black areas like Atlantis, is quite different than the money they spend in predominately white areas. Sure, they sponsor some big projects in Khayelitsha, Gugulethu, Delft and Mitchell's Plain; but if you add it up, it's nothing in comparison with what they spend in Bothazig, Constantia, Rondebosch and Claremont.
So while the City might this year obtain another clear audit, the issue is more political than statistical. Yes they spend money, they spend it well, but who really benefits? Certainly not the poor people in Atlantis, who just received pink letters from the City. All they'll get is their water turned off, their electricity services suspended; and then there's the really lucky folks who are threatened with eviction. Didn't we just win the BIG bonus?
What is needed, is for the people of poor areas like Atlantis, to make this City and the Province ungovernable. Not in the sense of creating lawlessness and anarchy, but just to make people aware that the Western Cape and the City of Cape Town, is not this perfect Utopia the DA and Helen Zille want the rest of the world to believe. We should be speaking to one another about projects and campaigns to ensure that the message is out there that people are indeed suffering under the yoke of the DA's Apartheid-style spending patterns and their general sense of simply not caring.
Patricia de Lille was paraded through the streets of Atlantis as a hero who has came home, the great liberator. But today, has she ever been back to Atlantis to give feedback to the people about what she has done as mayor? Of course not, lest there be someone who confronts her about the rot at the core of this shiny apple called the City of Cape Town.
MOEGAMAT SHAREEF BLANKENBERG
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