Opposition Party Press Statement on the DA manipulation of Cape Town Council
The City excludes Parties opposed to the advancement of apartheid practices
Introduction
The Parties are united in their concern about the procedures that are being applied by the City administration. We are in agreement that the Council process was fatally flawed in relation to the Constitutional responsibilities.
This conduct by the DA in the City is in violation of the Constitutional obligation that the Municipalities have. The process of stopping the meeting and relocating thereof to another venue that excluded other parties is in violation of the Municipal Systems Act. That fact reduces the decisions that was taken in the meeting ultra vires, and accordingly cannot be implemented.
We will file an application at Court as the opposition Parties to have these decisions interdicted. The fact that Councillors were not allowed to speak in terms of the agreed to speakers list is a violation of the practices and procedures of the Council and its Constitution and rules. Specifically Section 1.3 which defines that provision must be made for free and constructive debate during Council meetings.
The press was also excluded from the reconvened Council meeting where the DA pushed through the decisions in secret, when clearly these must be open Public proceedings, which also violates the rules.
We have the support of many of the DA supporters who are unhappy about the DA directing in the City of Cape Town. The bias of the City to the White areas and the neglect of the Black areas has made DA councillors unhappy about the discrimination in the DA. The DA councillors are prepared to support Opposition Parties in a motion of no confidence in the Mayor and the direction of the City of Cape Town. We will be calling for a closed ballot to give the DA Councillors a chance to vote their conscience.
The press statement also notifies the MEC and the Minister of Cooperative Governance to give direction on the City's violation of the rules of Council that undermines the Constitutional provisions of Municipalities. We have lodged a request for the Minister to intervene on this matter, as a matter of urgency.
Disclaimer
The following are contentious areas that we do not have complete agreement on, and the Parties will communicate their respective positions on it, at the Press Conference. The following represents the sentiments of the ANC as articulated in the Council meeting yesterday:
The Budget Adjustment
The budget adjustment had not undone the skewed budget that was previously passed and that favour delivery to White areas. We want there to be an immediate cessation of the money wasting on the World Design Capital and spent on urgent service delivery areas.
Annual Reports
The Annual report is more of the DA lies to the citizens of Cape Town, which does not claim the areas of failure that the City has, like double the national crime average in Cape Town, the My Citi areas of the bus roll out in White areas mainly, the increase in inequality.
Amendments to the I.D.P.
The amendments to the IDP does not refocus the City to deal with urgent areas of social neglect.
The renaming of the Table Bay Boulevard
Some of the opposition parties are united in their opposition to renaming the street after FW De Klerk. The reasons for the opposition to De Klerk is because he has not covered himself in glory as a leader in SA politics. De Klerk has been one of the main architects of apartheid and had been a key implimentor of grand apartheid. De Klerk in the last days of apartheid had authorised the attack in Transkei that killed 4 young children. He had also recently declared in an interview that there was not much wrong with homelands.
Clearly he never had a change of heart in his attitude towards apartheid and its legacy. De Klerk was only negotiating because of the various forms of pressure and to defend the interest of big Business and the generational advantage of Whites. The DA is pushing this renaming in the face of opposition from across the country, because they want to sanitise the history of the National Party which is part of the DA now.
Mandela himself had said on the way to receive the Nobel peace prize, that De Klerk has blood on his hands, and De Klerk has no regard for Black people. The process of the naming committee exposes many irregularities, with many inputs being the same word for word.
The Speaker who is meant to be neutral also made a submission, supporting the De Klerk renaming, clearly biasing himself in the process. The 2000 submission that was received by the City Naming Committee is a drop of the number of citizens in Cape Town, and was led by Zille and conservative Nationalist supporters from Stellenbosch.
The inequality crisis
The deepening levels of inequality in the City has exacerbated the apartheid divide of old, with resources being directed to old White areas, at the cost of Black areas. The City's own report of economic indicators, refers to the fact that the levels of inequality has increased in the City over the last 5 years. This is increasing the social injury in so many communities and the real reasons why some DA Councillors are now distancing themselves from the DA direction. It is clear that the White Liberals are continuing the apartheid generational advantage of Whites and Mayor De Lille has become the poster child of the White Liberals.
The Mayor is being manipulated by the DA as her political credentials are falling apart. It has been revealed that De Lille has come from a small NACTU sweetheart union that never took up struggles of workers. She by virtue of that Union got onto the PAC list to Parliament, where she was largely invisible. Her claim to fame was the arms deal, but just recently it was exposed by the Commission that she had no content on it.
The ID was a one percent Party on the verge of collapse and that is why De Lille jumped ship to the DA. She has sold her principles to the White Liberals and now she is under pressure to do their bidding. These revelations have reduced her political standings in the DA and long standing DA supporters in the City Council want her out.
Plumstead
The eviction of the people from Plumstead to make space for the My Citi bus route is similar to the way in which the Apartheid Government had implemented forced removals. This is like the worst features of apartheid, that are being reproduced in the City of Cape Town by the DA . The people of Cape Town do not want to see forced removals and unfair evictions in the City, when it has caused so much hardship in our past.
This is especially painful given the fact that there are alternative routes available for the My Citi Busses in those areas. We are going to be supporting the Community to defend their homes and stop these brutal evictions. We call on the City to stop trying to divide and rule the community with their apartheid style tactics and also to refrain from attacking the integrity of the inhabitant with financial claims that were not addressed by the City timeously.
Speakers Role
The changing of the meeting agenda and speaking process, is irregular and unprocedural. The Speaker had agreed to an approach in the meeting between the speaker and the ANC , that followed on the speakers list that had been agreed to amongst the Whips. A process had been agreed to in the Council that is the norm in the Council, but this was undermined by the speaker and the DA. This led to the conflict in the Council as a result of the violation of the process of Council by the DA.
The speaker has shown himself to be bias in respect of the Chairing of the meeting previously. But this time he was instructed by the DA after lunch, to close the space on the ANC to raise and expose the behaviour of the DA. We are calling for the removal of the Speaker who has neither the ability or the skill to Chair the meeting. A Council official is directing the speaker word for word, on what he must do in the Council. The Speaker has now also introduced new rules to close down the space for opposition parties to debate and expose the issues in the Council.
Conclusion
The City had closed down the Council meeting because they knew that there was broad opposition to their approach to the issues on the agenda. Their approach was no different to the apartheid government's conduct and orientation. It is these matters that led to the vote of no confidence in the Mayor that was on the agenda for the meeting.
This vote of no confidence was supported by many Opposition Parties and a huge amount of DA Councillors. If we got the closed ballot vote, the Mayor would have suffered the disgrace of a vote of no confidence. This was a key reason why the DA closed the meeting to the ANC and Opposition Parties, as it tried to defend the Mayor. It has clearly emerged that the DA made the arrangements to move the meeting to an alternate prepared venue during lunch time as they knew they were going to force the collapse of the meeting.
Disciplinary threat
The ANC rejects the attempts by the DA to discipline our Councillors for wanting to attend the Council meeting on the 2nd floor yesterday and will lay charges of assault against the City, for assaulting ANC Councillors as they have attempted to keep the ANC out of Council.
The DA has shown itself at manipulating the process to force through these decisions. It has further abused resources by taking Metro Police away from protecting the Learners at school to come and defend their corruption in Council.
Statement issued by Tony Ehrenreich, ANC Leader of the Official Opposition on the Cape Town City Council on behalf of Political Party representatives, January 29 2015
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