‘Under Patricia, Cape Town is more divided than ever’

THE odds may be against him, but ANC mayoral candidate Xolani Sotashe insists he will cause a major upset in the local government elections on August 3.

The ANC’s chief whip in the Cape Town council told the Sunday Times the ANC was capable of spoiling the DA’s party by snatching the metro away from mayor Patricia de Lille.

But if previous polls are anything to go by, it would appear Sotashe is living in cloud-cuckoo-land for even dreaming of winning back the metro the party lost in 2006.

The ANC won 31.1% of the vote in the 2009 general elections, 32.8% in the 2011 local government elections and 31.3% in 2014.

The DA improved from 53.8% in 2009 to 61% in 2011 and 61.5% in 2014.

In addition, the ANC in the Western Cape is barely functional as a result of internal divisions that have crippled party structures.

But none of that seems to bother Sotashe.

“When the ANC wins on August 3, we will correct apartheid spatial planning, which persists under DA rule,” he said.

Sotashe was quick to point out that the DA rolled out the multimillionrand MyCiti bus rapid transit system to wealthy suburbs such as Blouberg and Camps Bay first, with workingclass areas such as Gugulethu and Mitchells Plain coming last.

“The DA only cares about the production contribution, not the welfare of the poor.”

He said the ANC controlled five subcouncils in the Cape metropole and that these were being sabotaged by the DA-led city council, which is in charge of resource allocation.

“ANC subcouncils serving the poorest people are disadvantaged by the DA administration. The five ANCcontrolled subcouncils receive a total of R130-million from the city. The DA controls 19 subcouncils, of which the top two alone receive R450-million from the city,” said Sotashe.

To improve living conditions in Cape Town’s poor townships such as Dunoon and Khayelitsha, which form part of the core of the ANC’s support, he intended to improve co-ordination and relations with the national government. Such co-ordination was poor under the DA leadership, he said.

He said better relations would make it easy for national government departments and parastatals to make available state-owned land for affordable housing developments in areas such as Wingfield in Goodwood and Constantia in the southern suburbs.

“Although Mrs De Lille said she would unite the city, Cape Town is more divided than ever before,” said Sotashe. “The gap between the wealthy and the poor is widening because the DA skews resources, of which there is no shortage.”

Sotashe, who is chairman of the ANC’s Dullah Omar region, said he also had a plan to halt the erosion of the party’s support in coloured communities such as Athlone, where the DA scored an average of 80% in the last municipal election.

Central to that plan would be the introduction of street committees to clamp down on gangsterism and drug dealing.

“The first three things I will do when I am mayor is to find out exactly what the role of every city official is, to tell them how priorities will change under an ANC administration and to ensure that the city officialdom is representative of the demographics of the city.”

The DA only cares about the production contribution, not the welfare of the poor