Speech by the Executive Mayor of Cape Town, Alderman
Patricia de Lille on the occasion of a full Council sitting
on Wednesday, 24 April 2013
Good morning, goeiemore, molweni,
On the third of April, Senior Traffic Officer Wesley Woodman of our Traffic
Services was shot while on duty in Steenburg.
Mr. Woodman later died of his injuries at Groote Schuur Hospital.
On behalf of a grateful city, I would like to thank Mr. Woodman’s family
for his 14 years of service as we remember him and mourn his passing.
May we please have a moment of silence.
Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, there is no doubt that the affairs of local government are
difficult.
Every day, we face the challenges of managing limited resources for the
benefit of all of the residents of this great city.
Planning for that management is a difficult and lengthy task.
Indeed, that planning is the ordinary business of this Council and its
committees as well as the administration that supports them.
And our ordinary planning does not necessarily account for the many
unexpected events that occur on a daily basis.
Because of this, it could be argued that we run the risk of being too
inwardly focused: too focused on our processes, our compliance
requirements, and our costs.
As public servants, we bear responsibility for each of these things.
But that does not mean that we should become lost in them.
For the other aspect of governing is acting as one of the ‘anchor tenants’
for our area.
That means, using our leverage for the benefit of residents by interacting
with the world beyond our borders.
This role has a special significance for us as a metro municipality for we
have to understand our role as a city and our place in the world.
We have been fortunate to have benefitted from the unplanned-for
advantages that come with Cape Town being a well-known, global
destination.
We have also started to reap the benefits of our recent focus on becoming
the events capital of the region.
Indeed, we have experienced great success with the Cape Town
International Jazz Festival, the Two Oceans Marathon and a Bafana
Bafana match and are preparing to host such international acts as Bon
Jovi and Justin Bieber.
But broadly speaking, it would not be unfair to say that the energies and
forces of business and the economy moved around and without us as a
government.
While we understand the flows of the market and the limited role
government has in shaping them, we must begin to understand better
what government can do, and to co-ordinate and focus our efforts.
For when it comes to our place amongst these global forces, the City of
Cape Town has been a spectator for too long.
Not anymore.
Mr. Speaker, before Council today for consideration is the new External
Relations Policy.
It has been drafted after extensive research and comparison with
international best practice.
Indeed, when I mandated this draft to be drawn up, I did so with a
specific instruction: find out how the best cities in the world manage their
place on the global stage and package those lessons for Cape Town.
The starting point was understanding the nature of the global economy.
In the 20th century, a great deal of attention was placed on the
relationships between nation-states, especially at the economic level.
All measurements of trade, all indicators, were shaped at the national
level.
And the understanding of activity was limited to a focus on the flows
between these sovereign actors.
Economic analysis has advanced since.
Indeed, there is now a general consensus that trade, the force that
generates economic activity, flows between cities and city-regions.
Where once we thought of the globe divided by rigorous gridlines
separating countries, today we see expanding and contracting points of
energy constantly connecting and disconnecting with one another.
Where once we knew only formal relationships and strict rules, today we
understand a dynamic system that is in constant change.
Mr. Speaker, those points of energy, those agents of change are cities.
In the economy of the 21st century, cities are the drivers of economic
growth.
This realisation is changing the way businesses strategise their
investments.
Indeed, the McKinsey Global Institute has advised that, over the coming
decades, growth will be determined by a class of secondary cities that
understand, build-on or develop competitive advantages or competitive
specialisations.
And for the first time in the history of the world, more people will live in
cities than in rural locations.
That is why one of the focal points of global public policy is in
understanding the relationships between these growing centres.
Under this government, the City of Cape Town will become an active
player in forging a place for ourselves in this new era.
In so doing, we have looked at our relative size, our economic strengths
and weaknesses, our place in the developing world and more specifically,
our place within the BRICS countries and part of the economicallyemerging continent of Africa.
We have considered our fundamental identity as a place of opportunity.
And we have taken into account the desired benefits we want to see from
a new approach, including leveraging investment attractors and playing
our part to attract new people to live and work here.
And so, if passed by Council, we would see the organisation work
consistently towards these goals for the benefit of the people of this city.
Apart from mainstreaming a new focus into our policy-making and
determining our investment and trade promotion strategies, our
relationships at the level of international agreements and travel will be
structured around these goals.
No more trips for the sake of trips.
No more agreements with cities that have little or nothing to do with our
goals.
Let this be a new era for the organisation.
If a City of Cape Town official or politician is travelling in an official
capacity overseas, let them do so only for the direct benefit of this
organisation and to actively drive our strategy to create opportunity in
Cape Town.
And let us finally break out of this mode of thinking that has been
inwardly focused on how we did things in the past to an expansive
approach that learns from the best in the world for a different and better
future.
However, Mr. Speaker, we must not delude ourselves into thinking that
the battles we have to fight at home have all been won.
Despite the overwhelming mandate given to this government to take the
city to the next level, we are still opposed by reactionary forces that think
of their own interests before those of the people of Cape Town.
For instance, there are councillors in this chamber who believe that I
should apologise for publicly criticising Golden Arrow Bus Services
(GABS).
Those councillors should take note of my answer: I will never apologise
for fighting to change this city for the better, especially for the poor.
In fact, I believe one of the greatest problems we face as a society is
when people forget what they are fighting for.
For instance, outside this chamber, the Provincial Secretary of COSATU
says that he opposes the proposed SANRAL N2 toll roads.
But within this chamber, he led a unanimous ANC vote against this City’s
court action opposing the toll road project.
Then just a few weeks ago in a Transport, Roads and Storm Water
Portfolio Committee, the ANC asked to have their objection to a report
detailing the City’s legal strategy to oppose the toll roads formally
recorded.
Sometimes, the problem with wearing two hats is that neither of them fit.
When I was in the union movement as one of its leaders, we stuck to
certain principles.
One of these was our belief that the interests of business, the workers
and government could never be the same.
Indeed, I remember one of our key slogans: ‘Only the worker can set the
worker free.’
This does not mean that we believed that they should be aggressively
opposed to each other.
But it does mean that, in order for each to effectively serve its purpose,
they must be independent of each other.
We knew that you could not effectively form a picket line against a
business of which you were the shareholder- your vested interest would
come into direct conflict with your labour interests.
And those pickets were not for across the board wage increases year in
and year out, no matter what work was done or the performance of
individuals.
No.
We fought for the right of workers to get maternity leave.
We fought against unfair dismissals.
We fought for overtime pay.
We fought for dignity.
We fought for substantive conditions of employment.
I remember that we had to raise collections amongst ourselves to stick to
our principles because we didn’t have automatic stop orders to fall back
on.
They were not easy times but through our difficulties, through our
challenges, we knew that we acted with integrity because we never
compromised the interests of working people nor did we open ourselves
to possible manipulation.
Not today.
Today, some unions or their representative organisations are
shareholders in major firms and companies.
HCI holdings, which owns GABS has the South African Clothing and
Textile Workers Union (SACTWU) as a majority shareholder.
Today, before leaders organise, before they make decisions representing
their members, they have to think of how it might affect the bottom line.
They have to think as the managers they have become.
And so, instead of thinking about what systems might benefit the poor in
the city, they have to first think about what the possible implications
might be for profit margins.
I say that if people who say they are fighting for workers’ rights don’t
want to actually do so, then so be it.
The City of Cape Town will fight for those workers.
We will fight for the rights of the poor and just you try and stop us.
And we will not let politics stand in the way of that mission and will work
with anyone who works with us.
Mr. Speaker, I have received a charitable donation of 200 wheelchairs
from the Taiwanese Government for the use of poor Capetonians.
As a show of good faith, these wheelchairs will be split amongst the
political parties represented in this Council for the use of whichever of
their constituents they identify as their beneficiaries.
Caucus leaders or whips should contact the Office of the Mayor to learn
the details of distribution and apply for their party’s allocation.
The ANC will get 15, COPE 2, ACDP 2 and all the other parties will get 1
each.
In conclusion, let me take this opportunity to remind councillors that the
public participation process on the draft budget, draft economic growth
and draft social development strategies is continuing and will be
concluding shortly.
The budget will determine financial allocations in the next financial year
and so it is crucial that we get as much input from our communities as
possible.
And the draft economic growth and social development strategies will help
us shape both our approach to public policy and our partnerships with
stakeholders in the medium to long term.
Working together, they will act as our overarching framework for
delivering an Opportunity City; a Safe City; a Caring City; an Inclusive
City; and a Well-run City.
With interventions such as the proposed external relations policy, we
make good on our desire to take this city to the next level.
And while we may face opposition from those who work only for their own
interests, our focus shall remain and we will become known as one of the
most responsive, dynamic and innovative cities in the 21st century.
Thank you, baie dankie, enkosi.