The Western Cape government’s answer to mass migration is to hire an apartheid land-planning consultant, writes Andy Duffy
The man who oversaw apartheid land-planning in Cape Town is now a top consultant to the Western Cape government, devising plans to handle mass migration into the city.
Bertie van Zyl ran the Cape Metropolitan Planning Committee (Metplan) for 11 years until 1985, co-ordinating land planning and development for a string of local authorities. The agency provided detailed plans for townships ordered by the national government such as Khayelitsha, Delft and Blue Downs.
Now the Western Cape government has chosen Van Zyl to head a task team to draw up policy on people moving into Cape Town from other countries and provinces.
The provincial Cabinet, fearing the city is being over-run by people from poorer provinces such as the Eastern Cape, has dubbed Van Zyl’s work a priority. His findings are likely to form the basis for new legislation.
Van Zyl declined to comment on the project this week, saying he was bound by a confidentiality agreement with the provincial government.
What Van Zyl was willing to tell the Mail & Guardian was that Metplan officials had tried to isolate themselves from the politics of the day, and had merely responded to apartheid planning demands ordered by the central government. Other former Metplan employees back this argument.
“I’m a professional person, not a politician, and the provincial government saw fit to appoint me,” Van Zyl added. Other planning pundits, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the previous government’s town planners, willing or not, had provided the grass-roots structure for segregation policies.
Van Zyl’s new role in determining Cape Town’s development could also fuel suspicions among provincial African National Congress ranks that the National Party-controlled province is determined to maintain what it can of old-order planning.
Van Zyl responded that his task team would consult across the political spectrum. “This has been cleared by the provincial government, on which the African National Congress and Democratic Party are both represented,” he said.
Metplan was set up and funded by the region’s then 21 local authorities in 1973 to advise on land usage and planning across the metropolitan area, and research issues such as population and employment.
Francois Theunissen, former provincial government representative on Metplan and now a development chief in the Cape Metropolitan Council (CMC), said the agency had not set out to create an “apartheid city”. But its officials had followed and implemented government directives.
“To the extent that the Group Areas Act was government policy then, yes, we followed that,” he said.
“Government was always looking for land for new townships and we had to do what was necessary to integrate those townships into the metropolitan fabric.”
Metplan was scrapped in 1989, when its responsibilities were taken over by a new regional services council.
The decision to recruit Van Zyl follows a briefing which the provincial housing minister Cecil Herandien gave the Cabinet in June. He warned that land invasions and squatting were a growing hazard, and migrants were straining services already hurt by the central government’s drive to redress imbalances in provincial funding.
Such problems “don’t just stare the legislature in the face but are apparent to the whole country. The [Van Zyl] project must enjoy the highest priority.” The Cabinet agreed, and gave the go-ahead.
Herandien said this week: “Van Zyl is but one member of a core group of reputable, independent-minded professionals who definitely won’t be associated with or accept urbanisation policy options based on segregation.”
Van Zyl’s team, which includes Vanessa Watson, head of the University of Cape Town’s urban problems research unit, and Stellenbosch University sociologist Simon Bekker, enjoys a R350 000 budget. It is expected to table its findings next year.
Just how much of a migrant problem Cape Town faces remains unclear. Kobus Boshoff, development promotion director in the provincial housing department, said: “Thousands of them are streaming in here. My view is that irrespective of the numbers, urbanisation is taking place.”
Watson says getting a clear picture is practically impossible. She believes numbers are actually falling. Many of those coming from the Eastern Cape are not permanent settlers but are merely looking for work or services such as health. They tend to keep their homes in the Eastern Cape.
The motives for the provincial Cabinet’s haste in drawing up guidelines are also moot. Watson says many migrants from poorer provinces are likely to be ANC supporters – but the numbers are not large enough to threaten the National Party’s grip on the province.
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