I wrote the following article in response to RW Johnson's An independent Western Cape? in Politicsweb. It was published as Why a free Cape won't fly.
I read RW Johnson’s article ‘An independent Western Cape?’ as a
thought exercise, and not to be taken literally. I doubt the constitution, and ANC, would allow
secession.
I definitely don’t agree with Alec
Hogg, a fan of Johnson’s ‘brilliant’ writing, who in BizNews described it as ‘Western Cape separatist dreams could start taking root’.
Like Johnson, I too live in Cape Town, although
on the Cape Flats and in the company of ordinary people.
When it comes up in conversation,
people – including disillusioned former ANC voters – are disgusted by the ANC’s
governance of the country. But mostly we
are resigned – waiting for the next ‘huge’ scandal that analysts say might be
the decisive knockout blow and ends their era of misrule. Two years ago Max du
Preez was adamant President Jacob Zuma would not see out 2015 or 2016.
In the meantime, God forbid that Cape
Town and the Western Cape returns to ANC rule.
Nomaindia Mfeketo was a dreadful and an uninspiring mayor and her
administration ineffective and wasteful. (Her ‘reward’ for losing the city to the DA
was promotion to the National Assembly.)
Imagine the scandal-prone Marius Fransman, with his unapologetic
race-baiting, becoming premier?
It’s not that the city and province were badly
managed by the ANC. It had, and still does,
a core of hard-working, competent officials, including people of colour who are
the traditional workforce of city. The
latter are the people Jimmy Manyi said are in oversupply in the Western Cape, a
racist comment surely, but not one deemed worthy to be scrutinised by the Humans
Rights Commission or Equality Court. (By the way, why does Johnson capitalise
‘coloured’?)
The city and province – the rural
parts of which always had high levels of poverty and unemployment – was not a
bad place to be, even under the ANC. It’s
just that the ANC, like everywhere else, brought incompetence and a smelly
racial and political baggage with them, and a backward-looking demeanour that
is always out of step with the world.
So, if over the past 20 years, one
went to Cavendish Square, Waterfront or any middle-class gathering place, i.e.
when they are happy to leave the safety of their high walls, does one see worried
faces – worried enough to be thinking of a separate Western Cape? No, they appear comfortable and satisfied,
insulated by their cocoon of privilege and indifference.
The sense I get is the
middle-class here – of all races but particularly whites – can barely shake
themselves out of their apathy to protest – in whichever way seems appropriate
– about the decline of the country. Why
would they? They are employed, have
money and, thank God, the DA is running the city and province.
Johnson is enamoured with the DA’s
management of the city and province, ascribing business confidence and
investment in the region to it. I grant
you they are busy little bees and competent, but technocratic, managers. Unfortunately, like technocrats on the Left
or Right, they lack soul.
I can’t fault Johnson’s analysis
of the people of the Western Cape’s disaffection for the ANC. This is well-known and proven by the election
numbers. But I do question his
assumptions the city and province is attracting investment and a good place to be
solely because of DA governance.
Wesgro, the provincial investment
and trade agency, pre-dates the DA administration, as do financial houses that
have their head quarters here. While
acknowledging the province’s and city’s hard work to promote the region, it is
only the metro and nearby that are recipients of job-creating investment. As always, poor rural areas with their high
unemployment are dependent on farming, which the DA fanatically supports, literally
at the expense of the region’s unique and threatened bio-diversity (see below).
Johnson’s statement that the ‘decay
of Cape Town's inner city has been halted and reversed’ is not due to the
DA-run city, but city improvement districts (CID), an initiative started in
South Africa by the development-orientated Cape Town Partnership in 1999 under
the leadership of former ANC city manager Andrew Boraine.
First started in Toronto, CIDs are
not-for-profit companies formed by a majority vote of property owners and
funded by levies collected on their behalf by the municipality. They are responsible for (additional) cleaning,
security and related services in the city centre, Green Point and other suburbs
where they operate.
A major factor for Cape Town’s
desirability as a destination, particularly to tourist dollars, is its natural
beauty and ‘Continental, easygoing lifestyle’ (at least in the well-heeled part
of town, far from its township squalor), well-educated people, still good
universities, high human development index and good infrastructure. No political party in particular can claim
credit for this, although I agree the DA has maintained things well.
I agree those blacks and sometimes
whites – many of whom were not born here – who find the city ‘un-African’ and
‘racist’, have a grudge and/or don’t know the city well.
A major problem I have with the DA
is that under former party leader Helen Zille, having had a taste of power, the
party lost its liberal roots. I understand
former DA leader Tony Leon once remarked that there are few liberals left in
the DA. This is a concern Wilmot James
acknowledged to me when I emailed him after his criticism of
the DA’s family values charter and his
claim it diluted liberalism.
By the way, James had the courtesy
to reply, unlike his colleagues Mmusi Maimane and others, who ignored me when I
emailed them about various matters.
Cape Town mayor Patricia de Lille,
Zille and other DA politicians are remarkably strident, combative and
condescending toward citizens, especially to those who oppose their ‘red-carpet’
approach to business and development, which is seeing the insidious concreting
of environmentally, agriculturally and culturally sensitive areas, or toward
those who question their notion of development.
Apparently, we citizens don’t know anything and only the DA knows best.
Is this the way to treat voters
that gave them the city?
These past couple of weeks I have
been flabbergasted by DA councillors and city officials who, after I requested
year-old public information about the white elephant Cape Town Stadium, deliberately
stalled, obfuscated and lied to me, and presented doctored information as
complete and true. And they claim ‘clean
government’ and ‘transparency’.
Incidentally, the concept of
‘clean’ audits and the purpose of audits are frequently misunderstood and
overstated by those in government and the lay public, including Johnson who
mentions the number of clean audits the province receives. Last year Zille wrote the entire system
of auditing government must be changed based on her
misunderstanding and overreaction of an audit sampling anomaly during the auditor-general’s
audit of 210 library books. (Disclosure: I’m a former accountant who contracted
on AG audits.)
We expect hooliganism and
dishonesty from the ANC – some would say it is party culture – but the DA?
DA councillor Ian Iversen assaulted a
resident and DA councillor Elizabeth Brunette told the same resident to ‘fuck
off’ at a public inspection after residents were forced to approach the
councillors who until then had refused to respond to their concerns about
another inappropriate development. A
group of DA councillors wrote to the local paper defending their
colleagues. Iversen and Brunette received a slap on the wrist.
A senior manager and doctor in the
WC health department was persecuted for three years through a disciplinary
process and all the way to the Labour Court for allegedly having been
insubordinate to his putative ‘employer’, Premier Helen Zille. This concerned a matter that did not relate to his job as provincial employee – it
was a matter of public interest, already public and fell within the ambit of
free speech and fair comment.
The doctor’s sin was of being
critical of Zille for her cabinet members using political pressure to influence
an ‘independent’ provincial agency, CapeNature, for making a far-reaching
decision that benefitted the agri-industry, a DA pet project. Zille denied the accusation when it first
appeared, but in a connected matter, I obtained PAIA evidence proving some political
influence took place.
The Court found the government had
no case. I’m almost certain the doctor’s
harassment originated in Zille’s inner circle – where else?
A similar case recently played
itself out when the WC education department fired South Peninsula High School
principal Brian Isaacs, a regular critic of the department and its politicised
managers, because of insubordination. They also found him guilty of assaulting a pupil, charges the Wynberg Magistrates Court had earlier dismissed
for lack of evidence.
The ANC has set the benchmark so
low and South Africans’ expectation of mediocrity so engrained that when
someone in government administration – a minister or political party like the
DA – does the minimum we expect of them – a lower standard than we normally
apply to any hireling – some overreact and say, as Peter Bruce did about
finance minister Pravin Gordhan, ‘we must go down on our knees and thank God’.
Actually, we expect the DA to
manage Cape Town and province in a manner commensurate with their very high
salaries, salaries that exceed those for similarly qualified people in the
private sector. So to suggest, as
Johnson does, that because the DA are reasonably competent managers we should
harbour separatists tendencies, and do so merely to spite the ANC, is too much.
The DA in the Western Cape is
increasingly arrogant, authoritarian and unaccountable. Going by their record to date, in a
hypothetical ‘independent’ Western Cape, they would display the hubris and absolutism
that is the hallmark of the ANC. And we
don’t need more of that.
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