All SA cities need to learn these five lessons
This year South Africa celebrates our 30th anniversary of the end of apartheid and the transition to democracy. And we celebrate this in the best and most appropriate style — by holding a democratic election.
I was just seven years old when our country had its first real, democratic election. Too young to fully grasp the importance of the event, but aware enough to know that it was a big moment. One of my earliest conscious memories is of watching Nelson Mandela’s inauguration on TV.
Now this will be our seventh democratic election, and by far the most significant since 1994. For the first time the result is not certain and there is at least a prospect that there will be a change in national government.
In reflecting on our 30th anniversary, there is much to praise. South Africa is an indescribably better place than it was under apartheid. That tens of millions of citizens voting this year would not have been called citizens in the past, says it all.
But, for as long as the nearly 11-million unemployed South Africans see little prospect of a better future, we cannot possibly claim that we have made best use of these three decades.
So long as poverty deepens, so too will South Africa’s politics fray. Voters will be pushed to the fringes, where pedlars of the politics of division and hate lie waiting, biding their time.
For us true believers in the precepts of liberal democracy and its power to generate human progress at scale, the soil is getting rockier. That is the scale of our challenge, and I feel it very personally.
It is at the intersection of politics and economics that you can achieve real social progress, which is why I enjoy my job so much. Our mission in Cape Town is to offer a living demonstration that progress towards the promise of 1994 is still possible. I am incredibly proud to represent a city that is showing that this vision is still possible.
Cape Town may be a global tourist destination and regional economic powerhouse, but I think the city’s biggest achievement lies in showing that there is an alternative path available for South Africa. Rather than stagger from crisis to crisis, Cape Town is gearing itself for the future.
I want to share with you five differentiators to our approach to governance, which explain why Cape Town is outperforming other cities. I consider these universal truths, and I have no doubt that their application elsewhere would deliver the same improved results.
First, you must have a clear and bold sense of national ambition, something that you are unambiguously aiming for. This is best illustrated with a question: “What is South Africa aiming for today?” None of us can compellingly answer that question, and certainly no-one in the national government can. Instead, there is a growing belief that the failure of the state is inevitable.
In Cape Town we refuse to believe that. We want to show that no-one in South Africa need accept that our country now only has a reverse gear. Instead, we should lift our ambitions and unashamedly aim for excellence and progress.
Second, to deliver progress, you must build a merit-based state. This may sound obvious, but the South African example is proof of how easily aspirations of power can trump the ability of the state to meet the needs of citizens. Three decades of cadre deployment have eroded the capacity of the state to deliver basic services.
In Cape Town we have depoliticised the public service, and brought back the notion of it as an excellent career option for talented candidates. As our reputation as a place of excellence grows, so too does the calibre of candidates we attract.
Third, long-term success requires the devolution of powers away from the centre to energetic local and provincial governments.
Government functions should reside closest to the people who benefit when they work well, and suffer when they fail. In that way there is more democratic accountability. And this means local governments can act to protect their residents from the consequences of national failures.
In Cape Town we are aggressively asserting the width and breadth of our local powers, and deliberately testing the definition of those powers to their maximum, especially in the areas of energy supply, policing and passenger rail.
Fourth is the importance of future-proofing through infrastructure investment. The state of many cities and towns today is a lesson in what happens when you neglect infrastructure, or don’t invest in new infrastructure in anticipation of future growth. We vowed that this would never happen to Cape Town, and we’ve become obsessed with making sure we are ready for the future. At almost 5-million people, Cape Town is about to overtake Johannesburg as South Africa’s most populous metro. Ours will be a city of close to 10-million people within a generation.
Rather than be daunted, we have decided to meet this prospect head-on. We are now rolling out the biggest infrastructure investment pipeline of any city in the country. Over the next three years we will outspend South Africa’s other big cities — Johannesburg and Durban — combined.
My fifth lesson speaks to a distinct philosophical difference between our city government’s approach to beating poverty and the approach of our national government. Here I refer to the truth that only growth can fund more redistribution.
Whether you’re dealing with revenue generated from municipal rates or revenue from national taxation, the principle is the same: a low-growth economy with a shrinking revenue base is not compatible with growing redistributive measures. If you want to do more for the poor, you must have growth to pay for it.
In Cape Town we have grown revenues without the need to overburden taxpayers, by growing the local economy. This allows us to run the most redistributive government in the country, with a full 75% of our budget and infrastructure investment spent in poorer communities.
If you were to focus on these five areas I believe you will have laid the foundations for a successful city anywhere. US economist Ed Glaeser has a quote I love: “I know of no pathway from poverty to prosperity that does not run through city streets.”
But to succeed, these cities will need stronger local powers, growing local economies, competent administrations, and clear ambitions. In this way we can build a more prosperous future. After more than a decade, Cape Town has covered enough ground following this approach to start showing meaningful differences in outcomes.
✼ Hill-Lewis is mayor of Cape Town. This is an edited extract of a lecture at the London School of Economics