Once upon a time, his mission was to ensure that there were houses for those who needed them and better roads for all. Today David Thebehali, the first mayor of Soweto, is a pastor at the Faithways Bible Church in Booysens, Johannesburg, but he is promising homes in heaven for believers and roads to salvation for all.
The firebrand of yesteryear now speaks in measured tones. Each word is carefully weighed. Maybe it is that his 65 years are starting to take their toll on the Orlando East-born civic leader.
He was elected mayor of Soweto in 1978 in terms of the Urban Bantu Councils (UBC) legislation. He is proud of his achievements as mayor, despite its having been politically unwise to have been seen as working within apartheid structures such as the bantustans or the UBC — christened the Useless Boys Club by its detractors.
Thebehali had been involved in civic politics since 1968. After the 1976 Soweto uprising, ”government structures were looked upon as targets and enemies of the people of Soweto” by the liberation movements. That is putting it mildly. The councillors were hated for giving a respectable face to a brutal system.
It did not help matters that the councillors were essentially toothless, governing structures with no real power.
Despite all this, he gave up his job as a furniture salesman to wear Soweto’s mayoral chain. ”We were aware that there were people who had political minds about that [town councils],” he says, ”but people had to eat.”
He says he was very concerned that Sowetans were spending more money on alcohol and cigarettes than they were on education. ”Some time in the early 1980s the total income of the people of Soweto was R386-million a month,” he says. ”Of that R119-million was spent on liquor and R18-million on cigarettes. That is why we started a campaign to have each cent spent on a beer to be put into a kitty to build schools. The government had a rand-for-rand policy, which meant that for every rand the community raised to build a school, the government would contribute an equal amount.”
Financially, it was not easy for him to be mayor. ”I got an allowance as mayor. It depended on the number of meetings I attended, but it would come to about R1 000 [per month],” he said. ”Fortunately my wife [Busi] was working at the time, and we were able to make ends meet. Things were cheap then, one could get a good meal for R1!”
Soweto councillors were not only viewed as apartheid stooges, they were considered corrupt. ”Corruption was exaggerated,” says Thebehali. ”None of them [his councillors] drove expensive cars or lived in very big houses. That is because we got allowances, not salaries like the present councillors.”
In 1983 Thebehali lost office to the late Soweto populist Ephraim Tshabalala. Thebehali quit civic politics and started a church, which now has about 2 500 members, in Orlando East, Soweto.
He was not sad to leave the mayoral office, he says. ”I do not miss anything about that era. I am happy that the people are building on the foundation we laid. I have more peace here as a pastor dealing with the spiritual needs of the people. I will never go back.”
He did go back once in 1988, when he become an administrator for the Diepmeadow (Diepkloof and Meadowlands) council, a post he held until 1992, when the councils were dissolved in favour of new transitional structures. While in office he got into trouble for calling for a rent boycott.
”Soweto came into existence in 1905 when the first shacks were built in Pimville. The Johannesburg council started building houses there [in Orlando East] in 1932 . In the late 1950s, Sir Ernest Oppenheimer lent the Johannesburg council money to build areas such as Central Western Jabavu, Phiri, Moletsane and so on. The council was to repay the amount by building into what we paid as rent a certain amount to repay the loan.
”In 1989 [as Diepmeadow administrator], I called on the people to stop paying rent and only pay for services. The government did not take kindly to this, but I felt the loan had been repaid.”
Thebehali is proud of his record as a public official. Especially that 120 000 homes were electrified during his tenure, something that latter day civic leaders accept made him popular. Soweto also got its own university, Vista, and the College of Education during that time.
His detractors could argue that neither of the institutions had anything to do with Thebehali, because similar institutions were replicated across the county.
Other criticisms are that the Naledi and Chiawelo extensions were added to the map of Soweto during his tenure. As was Pimville Zone 5, where he built a mayoral mansion and lived in it for the duration of his term. Today the house is an empty shell — Thebehali’s successors were too scared to live in it when the townships rose up against apartheid and its stooges. It was vandalised and has now been sold off.
”It was a very difficult time, but not a single person rejected what we did,” claims Thebehali. ”No one ever said we do not want those houses, clinics and tarred roads. I think I made a small contribution to the needs of the people of Soweto.”
Critics, however, feel that history ought to judge Thebehali harshly for trying to give credence to the falsehood of black self-governance during the apartheid era.
Now the man who helped meet people’s physical needs sees to their spiritual needs. Thebehali now lives in Bramley in the north of Johannesburg. Does he miss Soweto?
”I can’t miss Soweto. I am there all the time. I was born and bred in Soweto. When I visit overseas and am asked where I am from, I say ‘Soweto’. If I say ‘Bramley’, they will ask, ‘Where is Bramley?’”