Dan Mofokeng, Gauteng Minister for Local Government and=20 Housing, in the Mark Gevisser Profile
One of Dan Mofokeng’s colleagues, who clearly has other=20 things on his mind at the moment, describes the Gauteng=20 Minister for Local Government and Housing as the prop- forward of the ANC team in the province: “He is not the=20 most skillful or the quickest, and he doesn’t stand out=20 as the tallest or brightest, but he keeps driving=20 forward. He is not shy and he is willing to run with=20
The metaphors Mofokeng inspires are of a lumbering=20 kind. In a particularly acrimonious debate over=20 demarcation in the Gauteng legislature last week, one=20 African National Congress member called the National=20 Party a “cat” sitting on the back of the “elephant”=20 that is the ANC. Johan Killian, who is the NP’s=20 sharpest claw in the ANC hide at the moment, could not=20 agree more: “Yes! Dan is an elephant! He walks like an=20 elephant over everyone else because he is big and he’s=20 got the majority behind him, and so he just stumbles=20 forth, unaware of the sensitivities he leaves battered=20 in his wake.”
Killian is a member of the provincial committee that is=20 withholding approval of Mofokeng’s demarcation plans=20 for Johannesburg and thus forcing the issue to=20 arbitration by a special electoral court. The latest=20 accusation against Mofokeng is that he doctored the=20 minutes of a cabinet meeting before passing them on to=20 the committee. If this was deliberate, the action was=20 nothing short of thuggish. If it was a bona fide=20 mistake, as the Simmonds Street spin doctors are=20 suggesting, then there is even more ammunition in the=20 arsenal of those who claim he is incompetent. =20
Many — including a significant slice of his own caucus=20 — cannot understand what the 35-year-old Mofokeng is=20 doing in control of two of the most sensitive=20 portfolios in provincial government. Certainly, he is=20 an experienced political organiser: he has done his=20 time in the labour movement and the civics, and is=20 responsible for setting up the first South African=20 Communist Party branch in the country, in his native=20
But this is the man who, as the Southern Transvaal’s=20 general secretary of the South African National Civic=20 Organisation, called upon black communities to “resist”=20 any attempts by the NP or the Democratic Party to hold=20 campaign meetings in townships. This is the man whom=20 Joe Slovo felt compelled to quash twice: first over=20 Gauteng’s grandiose claims that 600 000 formal homes=20 could be built in the province in five years, and then=20 over Mofokeng’s promise to write off arrears on rents=20 as well as services in all non-white communities — a=20 promise that would have cost the state R1,5-billion.=20
Despite the Stocks & Stocks fairytale that once drove=20 Gauteng’s housing policy, there is still little sign of=20 activity in the sector. Mofokeng has, in fact, done at=20 least as well as any other provincial MEC for housing:=20 the problem, though, is that he promised much more.
Now he stands accused of delaying the local elections=20 by putting onto the table a demarcation plan for=20 Johannesburg that his opponents claim does not take=20 into account the years of negotiation that preceded it.=20 Killian says he has become “power drunk — he thinks he=20 is God”. Another member of the provincial legislature=20 says he is “the worst kind of populist — Tokyo Sexwale=20 without the brains”. Mofokeng, true to form, fights ire=20 with ire: his opponents are racists, empty and=20 anachronistic little mandarins with no popular support,=20 trying to ensure their political longevity.=20
The Dan Plan replaces the current seven substructures=20 with four, grafting a hefty chunk of Soweto onto the=20 white northern substructure, and giving the Central=20 Business District to the vast — and black — southern=20 substructure. In an interview, Mofokeng throws various=20 figures about to explain that his demarcation plan is=20 viable. They make little sense.=20
The other side screams and shouts about the financial=20 inviability of Mofokeng’s plan. They make even less=20
The truth is that cities have the power to decide=20 whether the tax base is to be set at a metropolitan or=20 a substructural level: in other words, the income=20 generated from the wealthy white north could flow to=20 the poor black south regardless of the boundaries of=20 the substructures.=20
What the dispute comes down to is politics; plain,=20 simple and dirty. One of the by-products of multiparty=20 democracy is that the ruling party demarcates to suit=20 itself, and South Africa is no exception: the Nats are=20 doing it in Cape Town, Inkatha in Durban, and in=20 Gauteng the ANC has come up with a plan which will=20 render it victorious in all four substructures.=20
But while Mofokeng has displayed the finesse of, well,=20 Balie Swart in a china shop, for once his knee-jerk cry=20 of “racism” is not simply a canard. He goes to the=20 Special Electoral Court with the law — which insists=20 that all local structures be integrated — on his side.=20 In the seven-substructure plan he rejected, there are=20 almost no non-Africans in Soweto and no Africans in the=20 north. By changing the boundaries, he has rectified=20
But the harsh reality of South African politics is that=20 black people vote ANC: integration thus cannot but=20 bring about the downfall of the still-white NP and DP=20 in Johannesburg. So it all comes down to semantics: if=20 it works for you it’s “integration”, if it doesn’t,=20 it’s “gerrymandering”.
Simply put, Mofokeng and his opponents have already=20 begun fighting the local government elections, which=20 are only four months away. Quite deliberately,=20 Mofokeng turned a press conference on the demarcation=20 issue into a DP-bashing stump, answering questions on=20 technicalities with seeming non-sequiturs about the=20 DP’s abuse of power in council.=20
Earlier, Mofokeng had told me he had been reading pop- psych guru Edward de Bono: there’s a thin line, though,=20 between De Bono’s “lateral thinking” and the minister’s=20 sometimes wilful evasiveness. Another inspiration is –=20 now here’s one from left field — Rosa Luxemburg: “She=20 is a good example of a woman who is not popular, but=20 she pushes her way round until people accept that this=20 is a force to be reckoned with.”
He admits, openly, that that is how he sees himself:=20 there is something perpetually embattled about Dan=20 Mofokeng, but perhaps that has as much to do with his=20 portfolios as his personality. It was Mofokeng who had=20 to confront the violent anger of coloured communities=20 when they felt they were being discriminated against=20 because they could not have their homes transferred or=20 their arrears written off.
‘It was the hardest thing I had to deal with in my=20 first year,” he recalls, and he remains hurt by the=20 way central government refused to back him up: “I was=20 in the front line, thinking on my feet, and I=20 interpreted an existing agreement. Rather than helping=20 me, central government just shot me down. Here you are=20 like a soldier on a battlefield facing the most testing=20 and crucial time, and as you’re doing it, people start=20 fighting you from the other side and so you find=20 yourself in the middle, waging war on two fronts,=20 against incensed communities and central government.”
To understand his sense of embattlement, remember where=20 he comes from. He is a homeboy from Kathlehong, the son=20 of a construction worker who got himself to university=20 (Turfloop) by asking his dad’s boss to pay for him. “He=20 agreed, but on conditon that I didn’t join the UDF. I=20 replied, “The UDF! Never! Those troublemakers! I won’t=20 even go near them!” The deceit worked, even after an=20 expulsion, but “when I got detained, I could no longer=20 pull the wool over his eyes. There was a parting of the=20
He wishes his father’s boss could see him now, “so he=20 could see the results of his generosity”. But he can’t:=20 “The poor guy was killed in Soweto in 1987, shot and=20 robbed when moving through there, paying his workers.”=20
Mofokeng tells the story with an understanding of the=20 pathos and the absurdity, the complexity and the horror=20 of history; a history, in his case, that also meant=20 learning to live in a township where it became hard to=20 sleep without the fusillade-lullaby of gunfire. He is=20 an empathetic man — even his opponents attest that he=20 is affable and approachable — and one gets the feeling=20 that his blunders are often the result of=20 misunderstanding or over-eagerness rather than malice.=20
A senior source in the housing sector makes the point=20 that Mofokeng “has excellent instincts. He is very good=20 at picking up impluses on ground, but it terms of=20 translating and managing it there’s a gap. He tends to=20 telegraph instincts ahead of whether they are worked=20 out or not, and that leads to an uncertainty in the=20 sector which is the very worst thing for development.”
He will not be drawn on his rift with Slovo, and there=20 is an unmissable “Hamba Kahle Comrade Joe” calendar in=20 his secretary’s office. Later, though, when asked about=20 whether his relationship with the national Housing=20 Ministry has improved, he ventures that “Comrade=20 Sankie is doing a good job. As a political leader she=20 is very gifted and above all, she has experience on the=20 ground. She grew up in a township like the rest of us.=20 So no one can cheat her about living conditions. She=20 understands that perfectly well.”=20
The consequences of what he is saying are unavoidable:=20 Joe Slovo and national Housing Director General Billy=20 Cobbett might be comrades, but the result of their=20 leadership is that “we have a housing policy document=20 more than 100 pages long, and no houses! What ordinary=20 person is ever going to be able to make sense of that?=20 Why can’t we learn from our good neighbour Namibia,=20 where the policy is no more than 10 pages long, but it=20
After trying to wade through the arcana of how to apply=20 for a housing subsidy, I have some sympathy for=20 Mofokeng’s point of view. But although he fancies=20 himself as an intellectual (he has a degree in=20 administration), there is an anti-intellectualism to=20 the man that sometimes seems to be the result of=20 paranoia; of an anxiety that better-educated people –=20 white people — look down on him and judge him as=20 wanting. And the logical defence is the essentialist=20 one; the authority of knowledge that is inherent rather=20 than acquired: I’m from there. I know.=20