I find it really interesting to see the different approaches taken by different municipal bodies to resolving what is, essentially, exactly the same problem.
Last week many of you might have missed a little article about how Cape Town is revamping a number of its rental properties in an around the city ahead of this year's FIFA Soccer World Cup.
Considering that the work will take between three and five years, I fail to see how it will make much of a difference ahead of this year's event, but be that as it may.
The point is that the city plans to spend more than R1bn on refurbishing 7,775 rented council houses and flats in 11 suburbs ranging from Kewtown in the city to Marble Flats in Ottery.
The work will include internal and external painting, general improvements to resolve problems with rising damp, upgrading the plumbing and doing general renovation work on the roofs, ceilings and floors.
City mayor, Dan Plato, says that this major project will eventually address all the maintenance needs of the city's 43,500 rental units with the major emphasis being on improving living conditions for Cape Flats residents.
An essential part of the refurbishing programme is apparently to create jobs and to provide untrained people with some basic skills training as well. There are some other intriguing elements:
- Although some dwellings will have to be vacated while the renovation work is underway, the existing tenants will not be turfed out and left to fend for themselves. Instead, they will be accommodated in what Plato calls "colourful" modified containers complete with electricity connections, windows and a proper door.
- The council has undertaken to safely store all the belongings of those people who do have to move out while the work is being done.
- Then, steering committees comprising ward councillors and tenants' representatives have been set up to co-ordinate the work being done in each suburb.
Compare this with the Tshwane Council's approach when it was faced with having to revamp two seriously run down blocks of flats in Kruger Park in central Pretoria, a few blocks west of Church Square.
Tshwane's reaction to those residents who complained about moving out was to smack them with eviction orders, send in workers to start removing their goods (and dumping them on the street) and forcibly remove those tenants who didn't want to leave.
The council's actions prompted a virtual riot among angry residents who refused to vacate these flats. Instead, they set fire to the building and, as a direct result, several people died, while many others were injured in the mayhem.
Things quietened down at the blocks of flats for a few months while the council reconsidered its actions and then, all over again, Tshwane Council forced residents out of these blocks amid more angry protests and even more violence.
Similar events have occurred throughout the country as the notorious Red Ants or other council agents have moved into an area and simply destroyed it while demolishing shacks or forcibly removing tenants living inside a building earmarked for change.
Frightened and angry residents are forced to grab whatever belongings they can carry and get out of the way of these destructive bands of thugs intent on imposing a council's will on the people living there.
The residents in Tshwane's blocks were living there legally and while they had been told to move out, the council has offered them no alternative accommodation and provided no guarantees that they will be able to move back into the flats once the upgrading work has been completed either.
Exactly the same approach has been applied by councils in Johannesburg's suburbs of Hillbrow, Berea and Yeoville, and in cities such as Ermelo, Durban, East London and Port Elizabeth.
But not so in Cape Town.
There the residents are being temporarily accommodated. There the tenants have an assurance that they will move back into the upgraded flats as soon as the work is done. There, the council has undertaken to store tenants' belongings until they can move back into their new flats.
Surely Cape Town's approach is the more civilised way to go about things.
The only obvious difference is that members of the African National Congress (ANC) run Tshwane and the other councils who've adopted a high-handed, no-questions-asked, no-quarter-given approach.
But the Democratic Alliance (DA) runs Cape Town.
People throughout South Africa – from the squatters living in Orange Farm to the middle-class residents living in South Africa's more affluent suburbs – have all been complaining about a lack of service delivery in this country. In fact, there are clearly growing levels of incompetence within almost every one of the metropolitan councils in this country.
And yet, when it comes to an election, the electorate continues to re-elect the incompetent people who have failed them in the past.
Except in Cape Town.
Even Johannesburg, South Africa's richest metropolitan council, is unable to deliver services, pay its contractors and sub-contractors on time, can't repair its suburban roads, keep its clinics operating or even collect the daily rubbish that is dumped on the pavements in its city centre.
I'm not suggesting that Cape Town is free from service delivery issues: clearly it has its own problems in different parts of the city and there are thousands of dissatisfied residents who say, quite correctly, that Cape Town and the government has failed them when it comes to providing new houses, free electricity or running water.
But I still find the different approaches to the same problem – revamping existing properties that are run down and in urgent need of repair – quite interesting.
I personally believe that Cape Town's approach of negotiating with the residents is eminently more sustainable than sending in jack-booted thugs to throw everyone out.
And I also believe that every council in the country should learn from the example set by Dan Plato and his team. For that approach does produce sustainable change in an environment where the people can witness a government working for them, not against them.
No one in South Africa wants to see violent riots unfolding on our doorsteps. We don't want to witness panic-stricken people jumping out of a sixth floor flat in a desperate attempt to escape a burning building or a rampaging crowd.
Yet this has happened in Johannesburg, in Pretoria, in Durban and in other parts of the country as well. Unnecessary deaths will always result when thugs are sent into an area to forcibly remove those people who are legally living there.
We saw this for 40 years and more under the Nationalist government when forcible removals were seen as a natural consequence of government policy. And now, in some of the ANC-led councils, we're seeing it happen all over again.
Will nobody ever learn?
*Hartdegen writes a regular column for Property24.com. The content of his columns constitutes his personal opinion and doesn't pretend to be facts or advice. Contact him at paddy@neomail.co.za.
Readers' Comments Have a comment about this article? Email us now.
