Drew Forrest
Researcher Ryan Coetzee calls for a Democratic Alliance “branding” of the Cape Town council in his survey of city opinion but concedes certain key DA initiatives may be hard for Capetonians to swallow.
Arguing that the unicity government under mayor Peter Marais is alienated from the citizenry, Coetzee says it has allowed “unimportant and unpopular” issues to dominate the public agenda. These include “the firing of [ANC official] Andrew Boraine, the debacle over cars, chauffeurs and bodyguards, the Newlands soccer issue and street-renaming”.
These distractions had made it possible for the DA to be “outplayed on issues it should have won”, such as across-the-board rates increases and council evictions.
Coetzee’s survey of 400 respondents finds large-scale support for key council delivery initiatives such as free water and electricity and municipal policing.
However, 49% believe the DA policy of privatising water, electricity and refuse removal will lead to job cuts without guaranteeing better services or lower costs. About 42% would still oppose privatisation if it lowered costs to consumers.
Conceding that privatisation “is not an easy sell”, Coetzee rather hopefully suggests that “with appropriate communication, especially around the fear of job losses, majority support can be won” for the policy.
The survey also finds that 87% of respondents believe the DA-controlled council and province should work with the national government to solve Cape Town’s problems. This suggests Capetonians do not favour the province’s abrasive relationship with the central state.
The survey finds that 81% of ratepayers believe the council’s 7% rates increase was excessive, because the city could cut wasteful expenditure.
Coetzee argues that “taxpayers the world over are convinced they pay too much tax”, but that the root problem is the perception that the council is unresponsive to “people’s needs and experiences”.