Choosing the few over the many: Lessons from Delft

In policy-making, as in life, resources are finite. The art of government essentially boils down to allocating limited resources equitably and fairly to create opportunities for all. This is a challenge for every municipality, every provincial administration and every national government.

I know first-hand from my experience as Mayor of Cape Town that this balancing act is not easy. Not only does South Africa face all the challenges of a developing country, but we bear the scars of a system that gave preferential treatment to one race group over others, and favoured the few at the expense of the many.

Ironically, when the ANC government faces tough policy choices, it invariably does the same. Instead of striving to achieve the greatest good for the greatest number, the ANC always opts for policies that favour the few at the expense of the many.

One example is the government's inflexible approach to labour legislation. If the government was serious about creating jobs, it would relax the labour laws that dissuade employers from hiring more people. This would allow for the inclusion of many more South Africans into the formal economy, restoring their livelihoods as well as their dignity. 

For a moment, it seemed, even Jacob Zuma saw the sense of this, when he expressed this view in a recent interview in the Financial Mail.  He rapidly retracted when COSATU whipped him into line.  The few triumphed again.  The many unemployed have to play second fiddle to the labour elite.

Another example of choosing the few over the many is the government's approach to "transformation". Instead of focusing on policies that create opportunities for many, many more South Africans through the right investment in skills development, the ANC instead chooses the approach of manipulating the outcomes of senior job appointments and tender awards in favour of people with the right political connections.

Retiring ANC MP Kader Asmal was blunt, and correctly so, about the implications of this approach at a conference on racism this week. He said: "People are being appointed who have no experience. We need to do an introspective evaluation of affirmative action. You can't employ a tone deaf person to direct an orchestra or a brain surgeon who doesn't know science."  Such incorrect appointments are generally the result of political manipulation.

Asmal's view is clearly not shared by Minerals and Energy Minister Buyelwa Sonjica who said recently that meeting race quotas was more important than solving South Africa's energy needs. "The government cannot give up its transformation targets in order to solve the energy crisis", she declared in Parliament.  She is clearly determined to pursue the policies that have proved so disastrous for the country in general and for the poor in particular.  The only people that benefit are the small group of politically connected individuals who take home millions of rands in bonuses each year, despite the fact that they repeatedly fail in their core mandate of electricity generation and reticulation.

The latest example of the tragic consequences of the ANC's policy of empowering the few at the expense of the many is the housing crisis in Delft, in Cape Town. Recent flare-ups between police and various categories of homeless people as a result of the N2 Gateway Project illustrate the rage that such policies can provoke.

This project is pumping billions of rands into housing that is affordable only to those who can afford to pay substantial rentals.  These are the people whose housing needs should be addressed by the banks and developers in the market category known as the "gap" housing market.  Government policy should be designed to encourage the market to service people in this market with long term, affordable housing loans.  Government grants should be reserved for the truly indigent.

The ANC has done the opposite.  Through the N2 Gateway we have seen indigent shack dwellers permanently displaced from well located land near Cape Town, despite the fact that the previous ANC administration promised they would return to formal housing on their previous sites.  In fact, only one of the hundreds of displaced families could afford to pay the rent and return to a unit when the first phase of the N2 Gateway in Joe Slovo was completed.  The rest had to be moved 15 km outside the city, to what is known as a "temporary relocation area" in Delft.  This is also a poverty stricken community where hundreds of families, many of whom have been on the housing waiting list for decades, live in backyard shacks.

For them the new RDP houses would have been a considerable improvement, and they felt they should have first preference to new housing in their areas, especially as most of them have been on the housing waiting list for much longer than the residents of Joe Slovo.

The N2 Gateway formula was a social and political powder keg waiting to explode, and seriously fuelled by racial divisions.  When I warned the Minister of this, (shortly after I was elected Mayor) I was expelled from the project.  Ironically this has not deterred the ANC from blaming me and the DA for everything that has gone wrong with the project.

When I saw a looming conflagration in Delft, I made an appointment to see the Minister to offer my help to resolve it.  She did agree to meet me, but failed to arrive for the appointment.  I waited for two hours in vain.

It was clear from the beginning that the project was never intended to seriously tackle the housing backlog, but to present an illusion that something substantial was being done to house the homeless. The real target is the middle class, while the poor are set up in conflictual situations against each other.

The residents of the second phase of Joe Slovo realized that those who were moved out in phase one did not return.  They therefore resisted removal and blockaded the N2 Gateway in protest.  They took their case to the High Court.

Equally, in Delft, the backyarders invaded the houses meant to "temporarily" house the Joe Slovo shack dwellers.

Now the provincial government is attempting to mask its failures by pinning the blame for the illegal invasions on the DA, even threatening to sue the party for damages to property. This is absurd - I have repeatedly said that land invasions are wrong. A DA public representative is currently facing a court charge and an investigation by the Speaker of the City of Cape Town for allegedly inciting the invasion.

But no individual in the DA can be blamed for the woes of the N2 Gateway.  The real reason is policy failure.  Instead of attempting to pin blame on the DA, Premier Rasool should take some time to understand the rage of a community that feels excluded. Their justifiable anger was provoked by a policy designed to benefit the few at the expense of the many, and that was seen to benefit one category of people at the expense of others. 

The truth is that the ANC rarely formulates bold policies in the interests of the many. It is easier to privilege a few under the guise of transformation. It is also easier to embark on projects that look good in theory, but are not grounded in reality.

No amount of finger pointing and politicking by Premier Rasool will change that. Neither will it change the circumstances of the millions of South Africans that are still without access to basic services. This will only change when the government begins to make realistic policy choices that attempt to address the needs of the many and not just the well-chosen few.

First published in South Africa Today, a weekly letter by the Democratic Alliance, February 29 2008