STATEMENT BY BRETT HERRON, GOOD MEMBER OF THE WESTERN CAPE PROVINCIAL PARLIAMENT AND SECRETARY-GENERAL
18 SEPTEMBER 2020
WESTERN CAPE GOVERNMENT DECISION ON TAFELBERG SHORTSIGHTED AND DISAPPOINTING
Today the Western Cape Government announced that it would appeal the high court judgment which reviewed and set aside its decision to sell the Tafelberg School site instead of using it for social housing.
It is a deeply disappointing announcement and indicative of a regressive government unable to grasp its constitutional and humanitarian obligations to urgently redress the spatial violence of one of the greatest crimes against humanity.
The dishonesty of the announcement today is that the cabinet seeks to distance itself from the original sin by saying that decision was made by the previous cabinet which was a different cabinet. In fact nine of the current eleven cabinet members made the decision.
The proposed use of the Tafelberg School site for social and affordable housing has been the subject of discussion since the 2009 term of office.
Both Alan Winde and Bonginkosi Madikizela, who made today’s announcement, were members of the previous two cabinets who made these decisions.
We welcome the decision by the Phyllis Jowell School to cancel the sale and to return the site to the public. This would’ve been the perfect opportunity for Winde and Madikizela to announce that it would be made available for social housing.
Today’s announcement is obviously about the role of public land in our governments’ constitutional obligations to pursue socio-economic development and to realise the socio-economic rights of South Africans.
This government is peeved that the court found it could not sell off public land to the private sector without first consulting with national and local governments who might have need for the land for their public purposes.
The use of public land for public purposes, first, before being sold off to the highest bidder is the obvious and moral obligation. Public land belongs to the people of this country and not to the government of the day. Their role is one of custodian and their obligation is to use the land in the public interest.
The Provincial Government’s announcement is a set back for the urgent task to redress the spatial legacy of apartheid and to develop affordable housing in the inner-city and other well located urban nodes.
While they have announced a commitment to spatial transformation they are seeking to challenge the obligation to do so.
This appeal will cost the people of this province millions of Rand that could have been better used.
More importantly, it will cost the delivery of affordable housing years of legal wrangle.
The DA has already been in government in the Western Cape for 11 years and have no spatial integration to show for it. This case can last right through to the end of this current term of office and we will all be worse off for it.
Affordable housing is a crisis and we have a government that wants to litigate until the cows come home rather than get on with delivering it.
ENDS…