Back to the heart of Cape Town

A GOOD Speech by Brett Herron, GOOD Secretary-General and Mayoral Candidate for the City of Cape Town

23 September 2021

I remember the days when Cape Town was at its best:

A world-famed destination whose natural beauty was only matched by the hearts of those who called it home. A beacon for diversity, tolerance and hope in the Rainbow Nation: a place where people came to feel the warmth and strength of community… the Mother City.

This was the Cape Town that made us proud to be Capetonians. Investment flowed in a business environment that underpinned the City’s ethos: everyone is welcome.

But over the last few years, I’ve watched our City turn into something that is barely recognisable from the moral foundations on which it was built. You may not see it in the seaside mansions of Camps Bay, the lavish offices of the CBD, the postcards, the penguins or the pristine green parks and roads of the Southern Suburbs. But when you venture into the Heart of Cape Town, all of Cape Town, you’ll see it: Cape Town is no longer the place that cares for all – it’s the place that protects the few.

This is Cape Town at its worst:

A place which displays the extremes of inequality more than any other place on earth. Where a two-minute drive can take you from posh, pompous prosperity to the most dire pits of poverty – so long as you can dare to look. And our government doesn’t look, it cannot look. It has shown us over and over again that it doesn’t care – forever governing with one eye closed, pretending that the poor simply aren’t there.

While those “pristine green parks and roads of the Southern Suburbs” are forever being attended to, sewage water gushes through the pothole-ridden roads of the townships, and children die in its concrete parks. The homeless are rounded up, arrested and fined by apartheid-style security forces. Public land that is ideally placed to address the severe shortage of affordable housing is instead sold off to the rich. Business and development are hamstrung by archaic bureaucratic barriers.

We have lost our soul, fellow Capetonians, and we have lost our direction. But we haven’t lost our people. I am here because I still believe in the intrinsic goodness of Capetonians. Our government may be heartless – but we aren’t. Let me take you back to the Heart of Cape Town: a place where people care – where business booms and everyone can benefit from it.

This is the road that leads us back home…

PART 1: HOUSING FOR EVERYONE

Our plan starts with housing, because it is the vehicle through which we enjoy our most fundamental human rights. We cannot be a just city while extravagant wealth is so starkly juxtaposed by crowded, neglected informal settlements and the shameful scar of homelessness.  

Everyone has the right of access to adequate housing – and that is how we will deliver it:

• We will use the South African housing programme as the starting point, using the data available in the waiting list to inform where housing is built and what housing is built. We will build for those who have been waiting the longest, in their communities or close to them;
• But we will also go beyond the national housing programme and increase the rate of delivery in the City of Cape Town through proper contract management and running planning processes parallel to construction processes;
• Infill development can make this job much easier: we will build housing within the existing urban fabric using public land that is standing derelict or empty. This will allow housing beneficiaries to stay in their communities (instead of being forced to relocate to far flung developments) – bringing an end to the massive suburbs of poverty on the urban peripheries;
• We will implement a mandatory inclusionary housing policy: In doing so, we will use the value of well-located public land to leverage the development of affordable and social housing in partnership with the private developer – using incentives such as additional development rights and proactive rezoning;
• In other cases, we will allocate well located public land directly to social housing companies;
• Finally, we will proactively identify neighbourhoods for development – pre-empting gentrification displacement by proactively rezoning land to provide for development but include a mandatory inclusionary housing component. For example, we will investigate precincts like Paarden Island to rezone to allow developers to build mixed use developments (residential and additional development rights) in return for a contribution to affordable social housing delivery;
• Through these measures, not only will we radically increase the delivery of housing to the residents of Cape Town, we will also go a long way to eradicating the shameful remnants of apartheid spatial planning – where the poor are pushed to the city outskirts far away from quality services and economic opportunities, while a slender rich minority bathe in the comfort of a first-world oasis.

We will undo the effects of apartheid and achieve spatial justice.

PART 2: HOUSE THE HOMELESS

Homelessness is one of the most shameless scars on our Mother City.

The DA’s approach has been to criminalise the poverty of these most vulnerable members of our society.  For trying to live their lives, the homeless are met with apartheid security-style arrests, forced removals and grotesque fines. This cannot sit with our moral conscience as a city.

The homeless are not invaders, they are our residents. The calls for homeless people to “go back to the Eastern Cape” or “back to Africa” exposes the underlying misinformation, racism and xenophobia that is endemic in some of the City’s political leaders.

The City of Cape Town’s own survey shows that the vast majority of homeless people are born and bred Capetonians.

Everyone wants a solution to homelessness, and everyone has an interest in fixing it. Homelessness requires a compassionate social response that treats cause rather than just effect. This is how we will do it:

• We will rescind the criminalisation of homelessness, repealing inhumane and unconstitutional by-laws;
• We will implement a strategy that provides appropriate accommodation to those who live on the street, coupled with a suitable social programme that enables them to pursue the life that they wished for;
• To do this, we will need to build more shelters. Even before Covid-19, there were more than 14, 000 homeless people in Cape Town, but only 1233 shelter beds. We will house the homeless.
• The programme will include social services, psycho-social support and addictions treatment.
• In implementing this programme, we will work with organisations and NGOs who those living on the street can and do trust.

PART 3: INFRASTRUCTURE FOR JOBS

How does a government create jobs?

One of the most fundamental tasks of a local government is to provide the physical infrastructure upon which the economy can work and thrive.

Not only does infrastructure create jobs in the direct build and maintenance, it is what attracts investment, gives the economy its mobility and makes business easier to do.

It is not sufficient for infrastructure to be present; it must also be distributed fairly. It cannot be that one suburb has first-world infrastructure and amenities, while another suburb has nothing but poverty – when both of those two suburbs fall under the same government.

GOOD will boost Cape Town’s infrastructure – creating and maintaining hundreds of thousands of jobs in the process.

This is the plan:

• We will invest heavily in building new infrastructure, and repair and maintenance of existing infrastructure. This infrastructure ranges from roads, foot paths and dedicated cycle lanes, social amenities such as sports and community facilities, clinics and parks, to public transport, renewable energy and carbon-neutral buildings;
• A large-scale, labour-intensive programme will be implemented to construct, maintain, repair and ensure parity of service in infrastructure across all suburbs of Cape Town. We will create a built environment that is safe and dignified for all;
• We will re-establish the conditions conducive to attracting job-creating private sector investment: functioning public transport, renewable energy, readily available ICT infrastructure, and a government that is open for business and a reliable partner;
• This requires a large–scale reduction in ‘red-tape’ constraints that have made Cape Town such an infamously difficult location to do business. The Development Application Management System (DAMS) has failed miserably in its stated aim of speeding up the approval process for major developments which benefit the people of Cape Town;
• Crucially, we will ensure that public tenders and contracts have equitable outcomes that include local labour, local sub-contractors and even benefit small scale entrepreneurs including those who work in the informal sector.  Public tenders and public funds must beneficiate the local economy and create jobs.

PART 4: FIX OUR PUBLIC TRANSPORT

Public transport is the backbone and the lifeblood of any well-functioning City.

The argument that we should “get over apartheid” just cannot fly when the effects of it still manifest so vividly in 2021. And public transport is just another example of this.

The poor have been chased to the outskirts of cities. They are forced to spend unconscionable proportions of their gross income, as well as countless hours of their lives, simply to travel to work on what is often unreliable and unsafe public transport.

But it is not only the poor that need to benefit from enhanced public transport. We need to make public transport a viable alternative for car owners in order to ease congestion, fight climate change and give more mobility to our economy.

We came so close, in the City of Cape Town, to comprehensively restructuring our public transport systems to create a cheaper and more efficient service. We will jump-start that work to improve access and mobility for all.

We will get our reform over the line and fix Cape Town’s public transport:

• We will re-establish the Transport Authority and integrate MyCiTi, Golden Arrow and Metrorail. This will allow for a single-ticket system (instead of commuters having to pay more every time they switch modes), one scheduled public transport network (digitally available) and better governance;
• Through a ‘Transit-oriented Development’ model, we will develop infrastructure around the public transport network – making everything easily accessible to commuters;
• Within the Transport Authority, we will seek the devolution of the rail network so that the city is the contracting authority with Metrorail. Where Metrorail can’t meet the demand, we will issue tenders for other operators to operate on the network.
• We will work with Prasa and Metrorail to reopen the Central Line – including facilitating the land swop that Prasa has requested to enable them to relocate structures encroaching into the rail reserve;
• Relationships with the MyCiTi N2 Express partners will be rebuilt– and the taxi industry in particular – and get the service back up and running;
• We will complete the rail plan investigation for light-rail, monorail services – fast tracking some BRT routes that have sufficient demand to support private concessions to build, operate and manage alternative rail;
• We will also increase bus capacity where it is needed most.

PART 5: A CITY-LED TRANSITION TO A GREEN ECONOMY

Climate change is no longer a ‘long-term risk’. It is happening now, and the way in which we respond will shape our socio-economic future.

Like most things, it will be the poor that bear the brunt of the climate disaster. The rich may be able to find ways to adapt, but the poor will be left exposed. As we saw during Covid-19, disasters exaggerate inequalities.

It is also a matter of economic necessity – an opportunity as much as a threat.  There is a major shift in investment to ‘green’ destinations. We must not be left behind. We must align the policy response to climate change so that our cities attract new investment.

A failure to make the transition will leave our critical assets and infrastructure stranded – of no value. Jobs that once existed will exist no more.

Cape Town is ideally placed to lead South Africa’s transition to an exciting, prosperous and sustainable new economy. We will make Cape Town South Africa’s leading destination for what is a growing wealth of green capital.

How to tackle this expansive problem?

• It must begin with energy – the sector that contributes the most to global emissions. National Government has finally adopted the proposal initially tabled by Patricia de Lille for municipalities to be able to procure its own power. GOOD will use this opportunity to radically reshape Cape Town’s energy mix – rejecting coal and moving to a position where all of our electricity is generated with sustainable materials. Private-sector investment will be welcomed, and regulatory priority with be granted to these projects;
• We will integrate development with climate action. When the City’s funds are invested, money flows must be consistent with climate action – in keeping with the Paris accord. Again, net zero projects will be given regulatory incentives, and will ultimately become a condition for any major development in Cape Town;
• We will use our natural resources efficiently: protecting our natural ecosystems and biodiversity – building our water security;
• The effects of climate change will hit, and they are hitting already. We must ensure that our City is prepared to adapt to adverse consequences: such as the rising sea levels which threaten to wipe out large chunks of our foreshore; deadly heat waves and water shortages.

Human Sustainability

Human sustainability is broader than, yet intrinsically linked, to climate change. In the context of large-scale urbanisation and population growth, we need to ensure that we can sustain our species.

One of the fundamental conditions for human sustainability is water security and sanitation.

We will protect Cape Town’s future generations:

• We will stop the desalination projects – they are too expensive and the cost per kilolitre to the user will be unaffordable;
• To create a water resilient City, we need to clear alien vegetation from the catchment areas and around our storage dams.  Alien vegetation uses as much water to grow and survive as a desalination plant can produce. Clearing it is a far cheaper means of improving our water security, and is also better for our biodiversity and environment;
• We will implement a water demand management system that incentivises businesses to use less fresh water;
• Cape Town’s sewage and wastewater treatment systems are in a frightening state of disrepair. Already, housing and other developments are being delayed, as the City cannot guarantee that the sewage system can handle the additional housing demand;

• The ability to treat wastewater and turn it into usable effluent water is critical for water security and waste management. If this is not addressed, sewage and wastewater can become Cape Town’s greatest source of pollution, risking the health of its residents and undermining human dignity.
• If the Wastewater Treatment Works are not able to do the job, wastewater (including sewage) ends up in our dams and rivers. Three of Cape Town’s large vleis (Zandvlei, Zeekoevlei and Rietvlei) have recently been closed to recreation because of sewage spills caused by failing sewage infrastructure.
• Cape Town urgently needs to repair, upgrade and expand its wastewater treatment facilities in order to prevent a catastrophic disaster which is looming if we do not act.

PART 6: TARIFFS AND CHARGES

Tariffs and charges must be justifiable, fair and transparent. Rising and indefensible costs are forcing people to choose whether they should buy either water, electricity or food because they cannot afford them all. This is another breeding ground for homelessness.

We will make specific changes in the frameworks for electricity tariffs and water charges:

Electricity Tariffs

• There will be no more hidden surcharges deducted from your prepaid money before you get a unit;
• There will be no debt collecting via the pre-paid meter system;
• We will remove the fixed electricity surcharge – the infrastructure is already in place;
• We will increase Free Basic Electricity from 60kwh to 150kwh;
• After this Free Basic Electricity grant, there is “Lifeline Tariff” that allows those living in properties valued <R400,000 to pay the lowest amount (R1.48) up to 350kwh. We will increase this threshold to 600kwh;
• Solar kits will be installed in informal settlements, as well as new public housing and rental stock. We will also assist communities in financing their own home solar systems using the PACE model – Property Assessed Clean Energy – where the debt is linked to the property and collected with rates over 20 years;
• We will set up energy cooperatives with communities so they can produce their own power.

Water Charges and Water Security

• The fixed pipe-levy was introduced in response to the drought.  It should never have been a permanent charge, and we will abolish it. The costs of operating the water system can be covered from the water tariffs as they always were.

PART 7: CRIME

Gangsterism, crime and Gender-Based Violence remain gruesomely prevalent in our Mother City.

GOOD is committed to law and order, and the safety of Cape Town’s residents. But militarising the police force is not the solution – it does not address the root causes and it perpetuates South Africa’s culture of violence.

We need a wiser solution:

• We will ensure that local law enforcement officers are properly trained, professional, demilitarised and community-centric;
• Law enforcement policy should use targeted and evidence-based policing to identify violent-crime hotspots and respond with urban upgrading, better urban planning, and early childhood interventions;
• We will lobby to decriminalise and/or reduce penalties for petty and victimless crimes to ease the burden on the criminal justice system by focusing more on rehabilitative measures rather than retributive punishments for small crimes;
• To respond to Gender-based Violence, police need to investigate domestic violence reports promptly, and work with social workers to fast-track interventions, mediations and, if necessary, prosecutions. They must also respond rapidly to any breaches in agreements or court orders by abusers. No victim should be trapped in their homes – we will create safe spaces for the abused;
• We will invest in and promote alternatives for young people in gang-ridden areas – using sport, skills development centres and other forms of healthy recreation to provide an attractive life path away from crime;
• Finally, we will enhance and modernise drug rehabilitation centres.

CONCLUSION

Capetonians, this is our pledge to you: a vision and a plan.

We urge everyone, regardless of your party-political affiliation, to exercise your democratic right and responsibility to vote.

The power is now in your hands. If change is going to come – it can only come from you.

And change is what we need. We need a government that represents the Heart of Cape Town. This means that we need a government that cares, that is compassionate, service oriented and fair to everyone.

It is my greatest honour to stand for the position of Mayor of this extraordinary City. If elected, I vow to always lead with humility and respect. I vow to never put politics over people. I vow to spend our residents’ money only on what is necessary, and allocate it fairly so that all communities can benefit. I will ensure that only those of the highest integrity are appointed to serve as public servants.

Let us take you back to the Heart of Cape Town – we’ll all find warm and comfort in the arms of the Mother City.

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