Local Government Week has started in earnest with a National Council of Provinces (NCOP) sitting on Tuesday, in Parliament in Cape Town.
Local Government Week form part of the parliamentary programme each year during which permanent NCOP delegates conduct oversight visits to selected service delivery sites in municipalities to assess challenges. This year’s programme has taken the NCOP to the City of Cape Town.
Stakeholders from the townships questioned the claim that the City of Cape Town is the best run municipality. Various representatives from township organisations indicated that it was ridiculous to say they are living in a best run city, when in fact they do not see it.
Mr Mbonde from the Phillipi Development Forum said the President may have been misled about the City of Cape Town as the city has all the elements of a Tale of the Two Cities, as reflected in the novel by the novelist Charles Dickens. He said: “In Phillipi we live with sewerage on the streets. There is crime that is happening due to the lack of activities and support for the youths.”
Mr Mbonde said what people saw in the media happening in members of Parliament was daily occurrence for black people and citizens in Phillipi. This was reference to robbery involving the Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Police, Mr Ian Cameron, and two other MPs while conducting oversight at the Phillipi police training college. “That happens daily to our people and it no longer a shock them. When a white person gets robbed it becomes an issue and the media goes to town about it.”
Mr Vincent Domingo from the Gugulethu Development Forum said it puzzled him that the slogan of the City of Cape Town said “The City that works for us” when in fact they should say the city that works for some. He called on civil society to hold the city accountable on the spatial development framework and called on the NCOP to monitor the smart towns concept.
Stakeholders were united in characterising the townships as sites of crime, where development is subjected to the will of gangsters. A representative from Mfuleni said the people from informal settlements did not know about electricity or decent sanitation.
“When there was loadshedding, we were happy because everyone else got to experience what we have lived with for five years. Personally I got to use a flushing toilet here in Parliament. People at Loyiso Nkohla informal settlement will be shocked when I tell them I used a flushing toilet today.”
A Cosatu representative called on government, including the President, to take a walk in Khayelitsha, at night and without bodyguards. “We have two cities in one city; and the very good one that is working but we are not even aware of, and the townships. The NCOP must help us come to the City and then we will understand this better.”
SANCO representative Mr Bheki Hadebe said: “We demand a human settlement master plan that could be monitored quarterly. Extortions are the issue and are done during the daylight. Government spheres must bring about coordinated solutions and deal with extortions.”
He said extortion undermined the work of government. “We do not want South Africa to become a banana republic. Mass murders occur weekly. We need to call a commission of enquiry on this issue and that the state of disaster should be declared.”
He called on the army to be involved in the same manner it was during the outbreak of COVID-19. “There is no peace in our townships. If SAPS are overstretched, something out of the ordinary should be done; if the army was deployed during the COVID-19 outbreak, then why not now?”
He said Cape Town City cannot be a benchmark for a best run city. “I urge that all of those proponents of a best run City to take a walk in Gugulethu, Khayelitsha and Mitchell’s Plein, at night and then they can come and tell us that this is the best run City.”
Sibongile Maputi
2025
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