Scrap homeland ‘provinces’
APARTHEID South Africa under the right-wing leadership of the National Party introduced Bantustans or homelands as a way of dividing African people according to the language they spoke in order to govern them without any probable political pushback.
Those who follow the country’s history may contend that the existence or continuance of homelands or provinces was a political consequence of a negotiated settlement during the Codesa (Convention for Democratic SA) negotiations. The ANC was the major player in those talks which they believe laid out the democratic foundations of this country.
Ascending to power in 1994, the ANC did not see anything wrong with the existence of Bantustans, it increased the number of homelands referring to them as provinces.
The aim of the Bantustan was to keep Zulu-speaking Africans in KwaZulu-Natal while Setswana-speaking descendants were kept in Bophuthatswana (now called North West province). Has this policy changed? The answer is no, it hasn’t changed at all.
The sole reason for the ANC to keep homelands was political, it was merely to reward fellow comrades who had been with the organisation during the heyday of the Struggle. This logic doesn’t differ from having deputy ministers as well as non-functioning governmental departments which could be incorporated into others.
The decision to maintain homelands might make political sense to the ANC; however, it certainly does not make sense for the taxpayers, because provincial governments are as useless as the district municipalities, which are dismally failing to supply mere water to the South Africans across the board.
The scrapping of homelands will not only promote social cohesion among South Africans, but save taxpayers a lot of money which could be redirected to important services to those in need. These provinces are not assets, they are rather liabilities to us.
As we are approaching local government elections, we continue to learn from thought-leaders and political scholars that there is absolutely no logic for the continued existence of provinces or homelands.
The ANC, DA, and IFP will never support the scrapping of provinces because they are the main beneficiaries of the existence of provinces. The ANC, a dominant party, might agree to decreasing the number of provinces or scrapping them altogether when they start losing control of other provincial governments to other parties.
The DA continues to enjoy the rule of that other part of the country, the Western Cape, while the IFP draws its principal support from KwaZulu-Natal.
In recent years, the African People’s Convention tabled a motion in Parliament to do away with provinces and districts as this would have saved the country billions of rand which would be redirected to essential services in our society. The topic hasn’t garnered much-needed momentum and the general population seems not to understand the need to do that.
“The provinces and municipalities have proven themselves to be havens of corruption and inefficiency. They are an unnecessary drain on the fiscus, a bottleneck to service delivery and development. Nothing so far can mitigate their continued existence, we therefore make a call to the National Assembly and the people of our country, that let’s find a common perspective that provinces and district municipalities be scrapped,” APC leader Themba Godi said.