Squandering city’s budget at expense of the poor

THE NEGLECT of backyarders is criminal in the context of the great need that exists in Cape Town. That is why the ANC promised in its 2011 Election Manifesto for Cape Town that it would put in place services for backyarders. The mayor took up the ANC programme, and did a pilot project first, to determine whether people actually need water electricity and sanitation.

The need has now been determined, but the roll out of the service is constrained by a lack of funds. A total of R22 million has been allocated to provide 200 000 families with services in backyards, over the next three years. Now compare this to the way in which the city spends money on things in old white areas that are not as urgent.

The list is as follows: R500m on the Green Point park for walks; R40m on the World Design capital; a R50m advertising budget to tell poor people they have water, while their children are thirsty; R30m on soccer matches for rich city people at Cape Town Stadium; R200m for landscaping on the MyCiTi bus routes in the West Coast; R6m on moving street lights from pavements to centre isles; and R200m on Sea Point upgrades for that community’s recreation.

There are many more areas of non-urgent wastage which amounts to over R2 billion since 1996, when the DA took over.

This R2bn could have provided basic services (among which are the free basic services that all families are entitled to) to nearly all the backyarders in the City of Cape Town. The city clearly has the funds to provide the level of services as, since 1994, it has always been better resourced than other municipalities in SA. The above again just shows that this city is better run in the old white areas, while the Cape Flats is criminally neglected. In fact, the neglect of the poorer areas is exactly because of the extravagance of the wealthy areas.

This may be an unnecessary injustice to be pointing out, as the mayor says in the article (“Call to probe backyarders”, Cape Argus, July 8), but I would remind her that a key part of her responsibility is to undo the social injury of the society that was inherited from apartheid. She must put her money where the need is, as a priority.

Another R400 000 was wasted by the city on lawyers to fight an Equality Court case when the mayor could have faced me directly with her claims, so that a judge could decide. Why the need to hide behind lawyers, when clearly, after we lodged our case, the city introduced the following: Occasional tickets for poor commuters. Promising more buses for Cape Flats routes. Building bus stations like in Milnerton. All of these things did not exist before we filed our case. The city was going to give Mitchells Plain and Khayelitsha the second class services they always get in relation to the old white areas.

Finally, I wear the mayor’s insults as a badge of honour, when those are the best comments that her R50m advertising budget can come up with.

I again invite the mayor to a public debate on how this “city works for the old white areas first” and then “the scraps to the Cape Flats”.