We are fast approaching the end of five years of DA rule in the Western Cape. For the vast majority of the working class poor this has been a dry season. The mainly white privileged class of this province on the contrary, has never had it so good. In order to bridge the gap between these two worlds existing side-by-side, Helen Zille has resorted to media spin and conflated it as a legitimate substitute for delivery; in the process pandering lies, delivery failure and systemic corruption as stock-in-trade. It reminds one of Andre' Brinks famous quote: 'There are only two kinds of madness one should guard against... One is the belief that we can do everything. The other is the belief that we can do nothing.' In the case of Zille this should probably be paraphrased as ‘her belief that everything the DA does is right and the ANC can only do wrong'. This mantra she has shamelessly sold with the aid of her legion of embedded journalists. It is madness indeed, the sort that can only occur in a dry white season.
Zille has become so arrogant that she somehow thinks that people have forgotten her lies. Before looking at her broken manifesto promises made back in 2009, she made some real infamous fibs: She told the people of Green Point that ‘stadium will be built over my dead body' and now she has all but forgotten or simply swept the ‘interests' of the people of Green Point under the carpet and wallows in the accolades and praise for Cape Town Stadium. In the heat of the TBWA\ Hunt Lascaris R1bn communications tender saga she swore that she would resign if there was any wrong-doing. In the aftermath of the Public Protector's findings all she could say was ‘we made mistakes'. The report showed clear violation of the provisions of the PFMA, flouting of Provincial Treasury procedures and National Treasury prescripts related to the role of political advisors. Zille has also repeatedly denied that that any Cape Town residents are using bucket toilets then only weeks later she and Cape Town Mayor Patricia De Lille announced their intention to eradicate the bucket toilet system. This is a clear admission of guilt by the DA leadership.
Zille successfully persuaded 99.9% of eligible white voters and the majority of coloured voters to vote for the DA on the back of its 2009 Elections Manifesto and the promise of delivery. What followed in the subsequent five years was the blatant preservation of mainly white privilege and can best be described as a travesty of justice. This mainly took three forms viz prioritization of budgets to support service delivery to mainly white established areas at the expense of coloured and African working class and poor areas; diversion of existing funding targeting black (African and coloured) empowerment and transformation to reinforcing and re-entrenching of white business interests; and gross failure to deliver on qualitative and quantative measures and targets. Let's take a look at some examples in the transport, education, health and housing social development sectors.
Zille diverted the BRT from its planned route via the Klipfontein Corridor, Khayelitsha and Mitchells Plain as initially envisaged by the ANC run government during the 2004 - 2009 period where the bulk of public commuters to the CBD stay, to mainly white established areas of Milnerton, Parklands, Table View, Blouberg, Gardens, Vredehoek, Camps Bay and Hout Bay. This reflected her clear intention of perpetuating white privilege as she took a world class integrated public transport system and placed it in areas where most households have two or three cars parked in the driveway. In the process she also ensured that the bulk of the work and materials supply goes to mainly white contractors and the expansion of the MyCiti BRT system to ‘non-white' areas remains mired by delays and bureaucratic bungling.
The DA has won many awards few of which impacted on the quality of service delivery to the working class poor or meeting its own service delivery targets. The one award which it was most deserving of was definitely that of the most incompetent leadership in the education sector. Under the DA's Donald Grant the Western Cape lurched from one education crisis to the next; not only did he ride roughshod over the basic public consultation process that a democracy thrives upon, he wasted valuable resources to defend his untenable neo-apartheid position attempting to thrust his decision down the throat of communities. Needless, to say he was vehemently and vociferously supported by Madam Zille who couldn't see the wool from the sheep. In the end, the Save Our Schools campaign triumphed and showed the DA up for what it is; a party protecting white interest and totally disregarding the interests of poor and mainly rural communities.
In so far as health and sanitation is concerned, Zille's DA has grossly failed the poor and vulnerable in this province, particularly people living in African and coloured townships thereby heightening inequalities and perpetuating apartheid conditions. Early last year the Public Protector made grave findings at the Gugulethu day hospital. The hospital was found to be dirty and unhygienic. In addition, the province had a major medicine dispensing chaos early last year. This was the third time in two years that scores of patients with life-threatening conditions were forced to queue in long lines, get turned away and not receive the medication they needed. Repeated shortages, chaos and poor patient management over the past five years has become the characteristic of this award-winning DA Government.
During the period from 2004 to 2009 the ANC government in the Western Cape built 75 000 houses and delivered 90 000 serviced sites implementing a policy of integrated human settlements. Since the DA government took over in 2009 over a period of 4 years and 9 months (April 09 - December 2013) they have reversed this policy reverting back to apartheid spatial planning and only building approximately 60 000 houses and a measly 47 000 serviced sites with an increased budget. Doing a lot less with more.
Zille's biggest boo-boo was her poor handling of the poo-poo ‘porta pottie' protest. Recent protests by communities and sanitation workers have brought the sanitation crisis in this province further to light. The DA government was totally inept and instead of focusing on the problem of poor sanitation delivery by her government, Zille chose to demonise the victims. It was inevitable that a government so biased towards the privileged would always be in trouble with the poor. A veritable case of semper in excretum sed alta variat - always in the poo just the depth that varies! According to the City of Cape Town's own figures more than 80 000 households have no access to any form of sanitation.
Under Zille's watch the Cape has been declared one of the most unequal places in the world with huge disparities between rich and poor. Zille's DA government's policies have only served to entrench these old patterns of ownership and control of the economy. The consequences of this iniquitous approach was evident in the farmworker uprising of 2012/13 centred on De Doorns in which Zille clearly sided with the farmers and consequently had to face the grapes of wrath as the fires spread the length and breadth of the Western Cape.
It is however in the realm of the economy that Zille's failure has been most apparent. Not only has she replaced capable senior black managers with whites, under her watch every aspect of transformation has gone backwards. Last year the Western Cape was the only province to shed jobs - 37 000 to be exact. When Zille's spokesperson Zac Mbhele was pressured to provide details of the figures that they boasted about 40 000 EPWP jobs, he could not substantiate even after countless enquiries and referrals. Statistics, lies and more damned lies!
Finally, the self-proclaimed champion of corruption, remains the most ardent enemy of transformation. Under her watch those who were the beneficiaries of more than 350 years of systemic corruption-through which the large majority was dispossessed, their land stolen and the reigns of the economy systematically usurped, are sitting more comfortable and smug than ever before. They benefited under apartheid, shook Mandela's hand of national reconciliation, but vigorously pursued their class interests whilst funding the DA to bring back Apartheid in disguise. Enough is enough. Five years of DA rule in the Western Cape ring true in Andre' Brink's prophetic words: ‘This is the small, final, terrifying truth of my broken world. I am white. And because I am white I am born into a state of privilege. Even if I fight the system that has reduced us to this I remain white, and favoured by the very circumstances I abhor... The end seems ineluctable: failure, defeat, loss. The only choice I have left is whether I am prepared to salvage a little honor, a little decency, a little humanity - or nothing.' Enough is enough!
Marius Fransman is ANC Western Cape leader and Deputy Minister of International Relations. He is also a former MEC of Social Development, of Housing and Local Government, of Transport & Publics Works and of Health in the Western Cape from 2002-2009.
A shortened version of this article first appeared in the New Age.
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