Helen Zille, Democratic Alliance (DA) mayor of Cape Town, was accused by the African National Congress (ANC) and Independent Democrats (ID) of doing a lousy job at delivering local services as about 100 politicians and members of the public protested opposite the city’s Manenberg police station on Friday morning.
The protest was in support of the proposed change to the city governance from a mayoral committee to an executive committee system, which Zille has labelled as an ANC power grab. It would strip her of her current executive powers.
The DA municipality is not delivering housing, toilets in squatter camps or electricity and water services, Matthew Parks, regional deputy secretary of the ANC in Cape Town, told the Mail & Guardian Online on Friday.
He said Zille’s policies are not helping coloured and African communities, adding that when she came into power she decided to cut money for housing projects and hostels upgrades in poor areas, and instead put the money into more affluent areas such as Seapoint.
”She’s definitely very good at selling her issues to the media, but in terms of pushing housing, creating roads and creating jobs, it seems she’s not spending any time on us,” he said.
Parks said that if there were an executive committee, then the ID and the ANC would be better represented, and that the governance proposal is not about the ANC wanting power in every corner of South Africa.
In reply, Zille said her party cannot now change the executive committee to suit the ID and ANC, as the Democratic Alliance would have to betray its partner parties — including the African Christian Democratic Party, United Democratic Party, Universal Party, United Independent Front, African Muslim Party and Freedom Front Plus — because it would no longer be in government.
”So, we are committed to the executive mayor system,” she said.
Zille said the ”ANC’s power grab” has attracted a lot of negative international attention for South Africa.
”In the past two weeks it has appeared on CNN, BBC, Reuters, Bloomberg, in the Washington Post, the Daily Telegraph and in a number of other European publications … I hope the ANC realises that it has made a big mistake,” she said.
”We have tried to reduce the bad features of this system as much as possible for example by opening all committees up to the public, and giving more decision-making powers to the subcouncils, which brings governance back to the people.”
But Parks said that Zille demarcated the subcouncils on a racist basis, dividing them into white, black and coloured subcouncils. ”She’s not helping to right a very divided city and she’s had a golden opportunity,” he said.