What makes you think the City will listen now?

THE proposed introduction of a community-based planning initiative (CBP) by the eThekwini Municipality at a cost of R7 million has been met with opposition and condemned by the civic organisation, Save Our Berea. Kevin Dunkley, a co founder of the organisation which has tackled the city on a number of ratepayer concerns since its inception a little over a year ago, said what was more surprising was that the proposal was unanimously supported when raised at council, without as much as a murmur from the opposition.

“From being people who were always positive about Durban, we have become cynics given our experience over the past 14 months. When we saw the publicity for this outreach program, to be paid for by cash-strapped ratepayers, we had to ask why the municipality would want input from ratepayers when their track record of not listening to us shows they don’t care what we think anyway,” he said.

“The majority party in Durban has followed the lead of its national leaders in adopting an approach of, “we won the election, so we will decide what happens regardless of any view to the contrary.” Every day we see the marginalisation of those not deep in the heart of the ‘new’ ANC. We use the term ‘new’ because this is certainly not the ANC of Nelson Mandela.”

“Why has there been no opposition to this initiative? We can only assume that people have been taken in by another smoke and mirrors exercise. Or maybe a feeling that a project that sounds democratic and full of promise is worth supporting regardless of a municipality that behaves just the opposite,” he said.

Dunkley said the initiative was not an eThekwini Council one, but rather a top down instruction from the South African Local Government Association and the Department of Provincial and Local Government. ” eThekwini Municipality was chosen to be the pilot project of this programme,” he said.

“According to the press release, two items make up 94% of the budget. The first is a staggering amount of R3.7 million for catering. Food and catering has become the mainstay of councils, committees and projects. Our leaders seem intent on making fast food outlets and caterers rich at our expense. The second is R2.8 million for staff overtime. Surely, to get overtime you should be paid for ordinary time first? Unless this means existing municipal staff will be used outside of their normal work hours, and if the

initiative is about creating new jobs, surely then a job outside normal working hours is not overtime?”

“We have over 200 councillors in eThekwini who are paid around R35 000 per month each. Of these, 103 are ward councilors who are democratically elected. Surely by now they should know the problems and issues in their respective wards? If they don’t then we should be firing the whole lot of them. On top of this we have ward committees of 10 people per ward who are paid R1000 each per meeting regardless of whether they attend or not. We are reliably told the Berea ward committees are moribund. Not enough committee members attend meetings to form a quorum, yet still they are paid for doing nothing. Ward committees must be one of the worst ideas ever forced on the people of Durban. Wide open to manipulation, they have no real democratic basis

at all. Now we are to have a third costly attempt to find out what problems face our citizens.”

“”Save Our Berea can tell them for nothing. We believe this is an exercise in futility doomed to failure. Why? Because the track record of our Council tells us they have a history of ignoring the people so why should they start listening to them now?”

Quoting examples of the city's failure to listen to its ratepayers, Dunkley listed the following: ·

* Service delivery protests have taken place over the past two years in Umgeni Road, Tongaat, Cato Crest and Dassenhoek, Marianhill to name a few. Burning tyres, and stones have blocked arterial routes like Umgeni Road and the M4 as well as Cato Manor Road. 1200 informal traders marched through the CBD to the City Hall.

* The City tried to close down the Warwick Junction Market and replace it with a R400 million shopping mall despite opposition from the traders and a host of other supporters that included unions, civics, NGOS, architects, planners, academics and researchers. After a long protracted battle a representative of the City told delegates to the XXV International Union of Architects World Congress in Durban last year that the City had been wrong to not listen to the people. “The City had made a mistake when it had 'stopped listening to its own people before international input.” ·

*The Liverpool Football Academy might be a great initiative for the City but there was absolutely no transparency despite an investment by the City and Province. Pertinent questions were asked in an editorial of a leading newspaper none of which were answered. But long-term tenants of the City, Berea Rovers, the horse-riding community and cycling club learnt by default that the academy would occupy their properties, which were on monthly lease. You just don’t treat long-term sports clubs like that when they have served the communities over many years. Of course there were howls of protest and the Deputy Mayor and the Speaker in Council rushed to defend the eThekwini position by using the old “ lack of transformation” card, when neither of them had any knowledge of the true facts. It took the intervention of the Mayor to bring the various parties to the table. ·

* Seven questions relating to major city issues were posed in an article in the Independent on Saturday on December 13, which remain unanswered. One was about the Manase Report into corruption and mismanagement in the City. Once the report was finished the City and the Province refused to let us see it and it took an application in terms of the Promotion of Access to Information Act to get it released. ·

* Vagrants beg at intersections across the city. Illegal, aggressive car guards operate with impunity yet we have by-laws that deal with both. When international events come to Durban the situation gets solved on a temporary basis yet despite wide spread ratepayer complaints the City remains silent and fails to act. ·

*People call for action as the whoonga camp is used by criminals as a springboard for crime. Save Our Berea writes an open letter to our Mayor calling for the City to act and warning that there is a danger of people taking the law into their own hands. Within days there are running street battles with vigilantes chasing and beating whoonga addicts. Mayoral spokesperson, Sthembiso Mshengu is reported in the media as saying the Mayor will reply to the letter in due course. Of course he never does. ·

*The Witness carries a front-page story entitled, “Ratepayers Feel Ignored as eThekwini Communication Crisis Deepens.” Various civic associations and ratepayers groups, allege that ”the city has stopped listening to us.”

* Despite paying large sums of money to highly qualified town planning consultants, their proposals have still not been adopted. In the meantime, the City rubber-stamps rezonings that fly in the face of these proposals and existing plans. One such rezoning has 47

objections that are completely ignored in favour of a single developer. In another case, a rezoning to a category never seen before in the suburbs is passed despite objections, which sees the enrichment of a single developer at the expense of surrounding owners who will see their properties devalued as a result. Both matters are headed to the high court at great expense for the ratepayers concerned and the rest of us will have to pay the costs of the City’s legal defense. And if the City is found to be wrong there is no recourse against those elected officials who are responsible.

* Save Our Berea has a meeting with City Manager, Sibusiso Sithole at which we raise certain problems and offer our assistance to the City. The City Manager volunteers to address our second Monster Meeting, and the date is set according to his diary. He pulls out on the day of the meeting and two different reasons are given. Proposals from the 400/500 ratepayers who attend each of the two meetings are submitted to his office and to date we have heard nothing further from him.

* Without any thought to the ratepayers affected, permission is given to concerts and religious events at Curries Fountain and the Peoples Park that go all night. Complaints fall on deaf ears. A hip-hop concert is taken to Bulwer Park in the middle of a

residential area. There is no consultation with the residents who complain bitterly. The tight-knit Glenwood community has at least four Facebook pages dealing with community issues yet the heavily funded publicity department seems oblivious to that fact. Those groups would have been willing to facilitate the community buy-in but those who organise these events don’t care.

* Despite the costly Metro Beat insert in the Mercury each week, the city pays lip service to transparency and real two-way communication and uses it as a propaganda tool to pat itself on the back.

* Save Our Berea has to resort to using the Promotion of Access to Information Act to get documents from the City about a development we are investigating. Officials seem to pay no heed to the time period set down in the act and a complaint to the City Ombudsman about this tardy approach to our Constitutional right is acknowledged within two days with a promise of action. That is the last we hear from him or his department.

“Until elected officials understand that they are answerable to ratepayers and that it is our money that they are spending, we will never achieve the stated goal of being a world-class city. The community based planning initiative (CBP), we are afraid, is just another effort to hoodwink the ratepayers into thinking that the elected officials and their appointed officials actually do care.””