Mandy Rossouw attempts to unravel the complicated reality of cooperative governance in the Western Cape, a province where the ANC is the opposition
On a bright Saturday morning in August at the popular Beacon Isle Hotel in Plettenberg Bay, Western Cape social development minister Ivan Meyer left the podium where he was standing as master of ceremonies.
In the audience were some of the country’s top politicians, including Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe, Western Cape Premier Helen Zille, Bitou municipality Mayor Lulama Mvimbi and a clutch of national and Western Cape ministers. They were together to talk about how the three spheres of government — local, provincial and national — could work together; they looked on as Meyer pushed his way through the crowd to get to Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry Thandi Tobias, who had a question for Zille about where labour and NGOs fit into the Western Cape government’s plan.
As Meyer moved across the room, after being told there was no runner to get the microphone to the speaker, he declared to the stony-faced crowd: “Here in the Western Cape, we sommer run ourselves.”
The meeting was part of Motlanthe’s programme during his visit to Plettenberg Bay, a seaside town with both super-rich and ultra-poor residents. He was there as part of a nationwide tour to champion government’s anti-poverty campaign.
But it was Meyer’s words that morning that hit a central nerve in the complex body of governance relations in the Western Cape: the do-it-yourself creed of the Democratic Alliance’s provincial rule met the ANC’s credo that it’s government’s responsibility to rid the people of the legacy of apartheid. And that’s where things got complicated.
Plettenberg Bay is an anomaly in South African local politics. It is an ANC municipality in a DA-run province. The ANC won the municipality, which borders the Eastern Cape, courtesy of migrants from the former homelands who have come there to make a better life for themselves. But the DA is in charge of the province, so crucial decisions about issues such as property development — which local politicians consider essential to their development agenda — are taken in Cape Town. It’s the root of some serious animosity. And at the Beacon Isle meeting, it didn’t take long for sparks to fly.
Zille started by criticising a national anti-poverty strategy focusing on individual poor households that need help from government. With her “these are Elastoplast solutions, but it does not allow people to move out of poverty” comment, she fired the first salvo.
Government’s anti-poverty campaign is based on finding a young person in the poorest households — a “change agent” — who will get support to go to school or find a job and ultimately escape the poverty cycle. Zille disagrees with the approach. “There is no one-size-fits-all. You should free the child from his dysfunctional environment instead of giving him more responsibility than he can handle at such a young age.”
The presentations by the DA’s provincial ministers — which focused on creating an enabling environment rather than giving people money and support with warnings to citizens about refraining from things such as teenage pregnancy, drugs and alcohol use — only heightened tensions.
The ANC’s national leaders took turns punching holes in the DA’s arguments. “Why is labour and the non-governmental sector mentioned nowhere in the presentations?” one fired. “Why is there no talk of redistribution to the formerly disadvantaged?” asked another.
But it was Mayor Lulama Mvimbi, a young politician with a bespoke suit and a striking red tie, who finally addressed the elephant that had taken over the conference room. “There is this strong focus on the political side of things,” he said from his chair in the front row to soft murmurs of agreement. “The provincial government is racist in fighting corruption here in Bitou. When there is a fight against corruption, it is actually a fight against blacks. The whites that are on the [corruption] list are withdrawn [by white DA politicians].”
In response, Zille took her place at the podium and waved a dossier of charges against the municipality, which is under investigation. “Ghost employees hired. Abuse of government credit cards. Early or unsubstantiated bonuses given to senior officials. Fruitless and wasteful expenditure.”
Then she looked Mvimbi right in the eye. “Show me what is racist about that.”
A few kilometres away from the Beacon Isle, Human Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale prepared for his chat with Sarah Oliphant, an unemployed single mother who lives in KwaNokuthula, a poverty-stricken township in which alcohol abuse is rampant. Before the minister entered Oliphant’s one-room home, he looked up, inspecting her tin roof for leaks.
Sexwale had stumbled upon this part of the settlement with just one bodyguard and a government official from his department trailing him. He had broken away from the small drunken crowd that had accompanied him, Motlanthe and Zille during their door-to-door visits in the settlement, where a few brightly coloured government-built houses stood ready to be opened by the deputy president later that day.
With the crowd gone, only a handful of residents came to their dilapidated front gates to stare at Sexwale as he passed and it was clear that although the ANC had won the ward in 2006 its support had thinned.
Sexwale listened to Oliphant’s talk about her 19-year-old daughter, Precious, who could not take up her university scholarship because the bursary covered only class fees, not transport and accommodation.
He took down her story with his gold-trimmed pen and asked local councillor Lawrence Luiters how council is helping residents like Oliphant find work. But when Luiters referred to the “stinking rich” in Plettenberg Bay who do little to help reduce poverty, Sexwale became indignant. “Why do you call them stinking rich when they pay your taxes?” he asked the councillor. “Why do you refer to them in this negative way?”
He turned to the municipal manager, Lonwabo Ngoqo, who accompanied the councillor: “I want the speaker to use the right language,” he said, returning his attention to Luiters: “I want you to find language that will help you.”
Late that afternoon, after a feedback session to local government and community leaders at an open sports field in the area, Zille and Motlanthe stayed behind. The two spoke for almost an hour, to the chagrin of their aides, who wanted to go home but couldn’t separate them.
Zille and Motlanthe get along. But it doesn’t always trickle down to their people. An argument about logistics on Friday at the Beacon Isle didn’t go so well. Zille’s aides insisted they would not allow the DA leader to sit under a banner that read “Working together we can do more”, the ANC election slogan that the government has adopted. The solution offered by Motlanthe’s people: the Western Cape government was welcome to bring its own banners.
“We don’t have banners,” Zille’s aide said. The response? “Then you’re stuck with these.” In the end there was a compromise. The original banner was altered to say: “Let us mobilise against poverty.”
It was displayed at the last stop on Saturday, a community meeting in the traditionally coloured township of New Horizons. The locals enthusiastically made their voices heard: boos for Zille and cheers for Mvimbi.
Because even though Motlanthe and Zille preached the gospel of working together the entire weekend, the crowd felt differently. So did Mvimbi. He told residents that Zille continues to make corruption allegations against him, despite the standing committee of public accounts clearing him of all wrongdoing. He told the crowd to stand up against the racist government in the Western Cape and demanded that government give them what apartheid took away — a decent living.
But it will be the local government elections in 2011 that will decide whether Bitou will stay in ANC hands. Or whether the DA will be one step closer to sommer running the Western Cape themselves.