Speech by the Executive Mayor, Alderman Patricia de
Lille, at the full Council meeting on 31 October 2012
Mr. Speaker,
Good morning, goeiedag, molweni.
I would like to acknowledge visiting councillors and Members of the
Provincial Legislature of the Eastern Cape.
It is an honour to have you join us here today.
Please may we have a moment’s silence for Thomas Madigage, the deputy
coach of Bafana Bafana and those people who lost their lives when a
pleasure craft sunk in Hout Bay a few weeks ago.
Mr. Speaker, after that sadness, let me begin by congratulating the
Western Province rugby team on their victory in the final game of the
Currie Cup tournament.
I was lucky enough to join them in their victory parade yesterday.
Their victory is a most welcome piece of good news in a time of sober
thoughts for our country.
As all in this Council are aware, South Africa is experiencing an
international crisis of confidence.
On numerous fronts, our country has been called into question and
doubts have been raised about our ability to succeed.
We all know the moods of depression this country has endured.
There have always been those who called the South African project into
question.
But there is something different about the latest round of doubts.
There is a factor that we have not encountered before.
That is, the bitter truth of failing to live up to our potential and the
standards we set for ourselves in this great project of the democratic era.
We have been held up against all that we could have been and found
wanting.
Our own domestic dramas and crises of self-confidence have always had
the flavour of the dramatic, rightly or wrongly.
But now, we are being a taught a lesson in how cold and clinical a realworld loss of faith is.
It does not mean tears.
It does not mean passionate displays of sadness and grief.
It means credit downgrades.
It means a loss of foreign direct investment.
It means active disinvestment.
It means the rest of the world moving on to better places without a shred
of regret.
With our sense of national drama, there is no time now for shame.
There is no time for the endless introspection South Africans are so good
at.
Jobs are being lost in real time.
The resources we were relying on for social investment and upliftment are
no longer the certainties that they once were.
But why?
Why is all of this suddenly happening now almost 20 years after 1994?
The answer, Mr. Speaker, is plain for all to see.
National policy uncertainty.
National government inconsistency.
National corruption.
And unchecked, unaccountable incompetence at the highest levels.
These issues have been raised by those partners of many years who are
losing faith in us.
These are, finally, the wages of South African sin.
That is why, in these times, it is more important than ever for the City of
Cape Town to keep the faith in the South African project.
It is why, when this government was elected last year, we undertook a
programme of change.
We knew that, as well as this city had been run in recent years, that a
new agenda was needed to address the social problems that have the
potential to overwhelm us.
And so we set about developing a new strategic direction for the City that
has focused on achieving greater and more immediate service delivery
outcomes for our citizens.
That vision was based on the five-pillars: the Opportunity City; the Safe
City; the Inclusive City; the Caring City; and the Well-run City.
We set the basic strategy in our Integrated Development Plan (IDP).
And as this Council knows, as do the over one million Capetonians who
were consulted during the IDP process, we crafted the blueprint of our
designs with the aim of a moving beyond the old straight-jackets of
compliance.
We crafted it with an expansive agenda in mind that sought to activate
the full creative potential of this organisation and the combined potential
of the private and civil society sectors.
But we knew that, in order to deliver on the strategy, we had to change
the way that we work.
That is why we have structured the City to deliver on the five pillars as
five strategic focus areas that focus on corporate projects and corporate
themes.
These range from prioritising informal settlements to investing more in
capital-intensive projects such as broadband and a clear growth
management strategy for Cape Town that supports infrastructure-led
growth.
These priorities have involved extensive consultation.
Indeed, I have engaged heavily with informal settlements in the past
month alone on the question of the roll-out of utility services.
These have included Kosovo, Samora Machel, Sweet Home Farm,
Monwabisi Park and Ilitha Park.
In the end, our process has meant thinking outside of the box of the old
hidebound traditions of bureaucracy and government.
And I am pleased to say that, after much work at strategy and design, we
are seeing the outcomes of implementation.
Last month in Council, I committed to increasing home ownership in this
city by transferring title deeds to long-standing tenants of Council rental
stock.
That process is well under way with 2 500 title deeds being processed as
we speak.
I will be in a position to announce the final details at our final Council
meeting of the year when all due legal requirements have been met.
This will increase the essential catalyst of industry that begins with simple
ownership rights of basic assets.
And that ownership must also acknowledge the need for social justice in
some cases.
We have already made several interventions into areas of redress for land
and property claimants who were the victims of the Apartheid system.
As part of those efforts, I am proud to say that the community of
Steurhof Flats will finally become the beneficiaries of title-deed transfers
once all legal processes have been completed.
This will see the realisation of a decades-long commitment to that
community that was denied justice by the policy of forced removals.
But we must also realise that, in as much as there is the potential for
social justice and economic opportunity in our Council stock, there is also
the opportunity for abuse and criminal enterprise.
That is why, subsequent to the sting operation which I was a part of two
weeks ago in Kewtown and Hanover Park, we have issued 14 notices of
‘termination of leases’ to certain tenants for contravening these lease
agreements.
These contraventions are potentially linked to the illegal activities which
are conducted in some of our Council Rental Units.
Indeed, we have identified approximately 350 Council Rental Units where
current occupants are potentially linked to alleged illegal activities.
The City’s Law Enforcement and Housing Safety Units will continue to
conduct regular operations in Council-owned properties throughout the
metro aimed at rooting out crime.
And in so doing, we will further increase the potential for opportunity for
the majority of law-abiding citizens in the metro.
In that regard, I am also pleased to inform this Council that significant
progress has been made in negotiating the handover of title deeds to the
tenants of the so-called Lagunya shops.
By May next year I am hopeful that the necessary processes will be
completed and the 150 tenants, some of whom have leased these
facilities since the 1960s, will be afforded title to the properties in
question.
This will enable them to expand, access debt finance, employ more people
and add to the foundation of opportunity in this city.
And to broaden opportunity, we have balanced the needs of direct
individual empowerment with empowering the entire city’s potential.
As such, we launched the Transport Authority for the city this month,
‘Transport for Cape Town.’
A first for South Africa, it will provide the activation point for sustainable,
integrated public transport in the city.
That activation point will see consistent standards applied across all
modes of transport, from the quality of passage, to the fares charged, to
the safety provisions in place.
It will finally mean a pattern and a method behind the numerous
transport routes in Cape Town that will act as a major economic catalyst
for the population, linking us all in a dynamic network of free movement
and opportunity.
And, in terms of opportunity projects, being considered by Council today
is the process plan for the next stages of hosting the World Design Capital
in 2014.
If approved by Council, we will move onto the project implementation
stage with the establishment of the implementing organisation and the
strategy for delivering a successful host city agreement.
This will be a major step in our preparations for this prestigious year-long
event that will see Cape Town’s international position as a centre for
innovation and creativity be cemented.
In so doing, we will have created the necessary conditions for creating a
distinct signifier for the city, a competitive advantage that separates us
from other mid-size cities in the world.
And in these times of intense competition for investment, we will have
further added to our city’s evolving brand as an attractive new centre for
investment and trade.
The benefits of this mean greater market exposure for our city and its
industries, adding to the potential for job-creating growth and expansion.
Indeed, there is still more to be done to grow our economy which is why I
will be asking the City and the Council to consider the outcomes of the
Proudly South African Procurement Conference.
In encouraging economic activity, we must strike the balance of
preferring local procurement, and industry, with keeping our cost base as
low as possible so that we maximise service delivery within the
constraints of our available resources.
Local procurement of local goods means local jobs.
But it must also be affordable so that we can deliver on the expansive
social policy agenda which this City has pioneered.
As such, when the accord of this conference is put before this Council, it
must consider whether the accord speaks about how local industries can
become more price competitive by reducing national red tape,
streamlining standards approvals and making labour legislation more
effective.
And so, Mr. Speaker, I believe that we are establishing a centre of
excellence here in Cape Town that is delivering on the South African
project.
But there is yet more that we need to do to truly deliver on the kind of
expansive social and economic change that will help us overcome our
past.
That means entrenching the details of our strategy and our programme of
action at all levels of the organisation.
We have done a great deal thus far and achieved certain tangible, realworld outcomes.
But our process of change needs to move into the next phase.
That is why I have asked the City Manager and the Strategic Policy Unit to
lead a process of change management throughout the organisation.
We need to begin to realign all of the planning initiatives at every level of
management to deliver on our economic and social development
strategies.
As such, in the coming months, this Council will consider Economic
Development and Social Development strategies that give life to our
principles and macro-strategy at an organisational level.
These transversal initiatives will run parallel to a centering of all
management levels that truly gives life to the spirit of the Organisational
Transformation and Development Plan (OTDP) approved by Council with
the IDP.
That plan will find the expression of implementation through this change
process.
And it will be just another way that the City of Cape Town distinguishes
itself as a public organisation of managerial and delivery excellence in
South Africa.
Excellence means having the courage to do things differently.
That means having the courage to follow the goals of your strategy, no
matter what.
One of the reasons why South Africa is in its current situation is because
there are few consequences for laziness or resistance to change.
That will not be the Cape Town story.
This change process is a serious one.
It is one that requires complete focus.
And it is one that requires complete teamwork.
We cannot try to deliver the strategy with those who refuse to be a part
of the team; with those who are resistant to change.
The problems Cape Town faces will not wait for these people to come
around.
And neither will we.
So I have a special appeal to the senior political and administrative
leaders, those who are supposed to drive the strategy through the City:
Help us deliver the change for there is much we can still do.
And if you cannot, then it is time to make way for those who can.
In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, the country’s reputation has been thrown into
doubt.
Questions have been raised about our ability, and indeed our will, to live
up to our potential.
Other levels of government must choose how they will answer these
questions.
But we will not wait in vain for the endless factional battles to play
themselves out.
We will not wait for a system of cadres to embrace a National
Development Plan above their own immediate self-interests.
And we will not wait for leadership from those who upgrade their personal
homes at Nkandla to the tune of a quarter of a billion Rand.
We will lead ourselves here in Cape Town.
And we will show that the South African project still has the potential to
succeed.
Thank you.