The first few weeks of the new city administration have been filled with excitement. We have implemented plans to address the crisis in the city’s rescue services and to help people in poor communities affected by winter flooding.
We are revitalising the city police to fight crime and in our first month we boosted payment collection levels in the city to 110%. We have opened the meetings of the mayoral committee to the media and begun a full forensic audit of the council’s tender processes.
Unfortunately, the political squabbles with the African National Congress have been something of a distraction. It is not a typical squabble between the Democratic Alliance and the ANC. Quite simply, the ANC is trying to destroy the new multiparty government. Or, to quote ANC provincial chairperson James Ngculu: ”We are focused on ending that coalition.”
To do so, the ANC has chosen a two-pronged strategy. First, it is doing its best to foment mistrust and destruction, even resorting to violence at public meetings, in order to create the impression that the city is ungovernable. Second, it is calling on the province to step in and resolve the ”instability” — which is entirely of the ANC’s own creation — by taking administrative control of the city.
Effectively, the ANC is trying to regain power by means of an administrative coup. And it must be stopped, for if it succeeds then the future of South African democracy is in danger.
What are the issues?
We have decided not to renew the contracts of the political staff hired by the ANC during its tenure in office.
Political staff, as opposed to administrative staff, are hired for a short-term period only. When power changes hands, the new government brings in its own political staff and the old staff move on.
It is unreasonable to expect that the DA would retain the services of such people as ANC regional secretary Matthew Parks, for example, who collects a salary from the city, but issues press releases attacking its new government.
Then there are people like the former mayoral spokesperson Mandla Tyala, who had his R600 000 per year contract renewed for five years in the dying days of the ANC’s power — and has barely turned up for work.
We have slimmed down the political personnel in the office of the mayor and the deputy mayor from 27 employees to 12, which, together with savings in other mayoral committee appointments, has resulted in a cost savings of R6-million that can now be spent on the needs of the city’s residents.
At the same time, we have retained the city’s best administrative staff, without regard to race or political affiliation. This is in sharp contrast to the behaviour of the previous ANC administration, which did, in fact, purge the city of its best administrators on the basis of race and politics, paying them R100-million in severance packages. The one administrative employee we have let go is outgoing city manager Wallace Mgoqi.
I have known Mgoqi for two decades and I bear him no personal animosity. However, his conduct in recent months has made it clear that he has no wish to work with any administration but the ANC’s.
Mgoqi’s contract was improperly extended by former mayor Nomaindia Mfeketo, who acted against the advice offered by the city’s lawyers. He is on shaky legal ground and he knows it. That has not stopped him from playing the race card and doing his best to disrupt the work of the city.
I am confident that the city government will remain intact and that the province will not intervene.
It is clear that the ANC’s efforts are being instigated by the same faction, led by Max Ozinsky and others, who ousted Premier Ebrahim Rasool from the ANC executive.
They have attacked me for my work in Crossroads, Khayelitsha and other townships, claiming I am ”divisive”. (I suppose that if I did not devote so much time to those areas, they would call me a racist!)
What they are really afraid of is that the multiparty government will deliver, and is delivering, better services in black and coloured communities. The ANC is fully prepared to block delivery to the poorest residents of Cape Town if it believes it can take political advantage.
It is gratifying to see that, at national level, the ANC has condemned it ”without qualification”. The next step is to intervene in the province — in order to enforce the election result and ensure that the ANC accepts its role in opposition.
Helen Zille is the mayor of Cape Town