Witness
There has been a lot of media recently about the National Department of Cooperative Governance’s Back to Basics strategy for local government. But many people wonder: what are the basics? And what are the basics not?
Our constitution gives us insight here, stating that the objectives of local government are to be accountable to local communities; to provide services in a sustainable manner; to promote social and economic development; to create a safe and healthy environment and to encourage the involvement of communities. So at a very basic level, local government should perform those functions. But too often we hear of municipalities who, instead of focussing on these basics, get sidetracked by rent-seeking elites, or self interest.
Of course, local government doesn’t have to stick to service provision alone, but where additional activities are undertaken, they should be carefully evaluated and the principle of Primum non nocere (first, do no harm) applied.
The ‘first, do no harm’ principle states that when presented with a problem, at the very least, ensure that you don’t make it worse. Doctors are taught to give consideration to it in the way they treat patients, ensuring that the benefits of treatment are greater than the dis-benefits.
Its application is however not always that simple: what may harm one segment of society, can benefit another. Also, the risks may not be clear – what can seem like a good idea at the time can have unforeseen and unintended consequences.
One of the greatest difficulties a municipality faces is in balancing the needs of different and often competing interest groups. In general though, the principle should be one of doing what is in the long term interests of the broader community. Again, not always an easy principle to implement. Firstly, because as the poet Mzwakhe Mbuli said: “change is pain”. Even a project that has clear all-round benefits, for example Durban’s central beachfront upgrade, was at the time met with significant resistance.
But the important issue in evaluating what local government should or should not do, is to understand not just an activity’s specific impacts, but its broader impacts on the city as a whole. Many projects have local benefits with no specific disbenefits for the broader municipality. Others have local disbenefits, yet significant broader benefits. Think about building a new crematorium, or prison, or waste disposal facility: they have to be accommodated in accessible locations, but often bring disbenefits to their neighbours. No one wants to live or work next to a waste disposal site for example, hence the NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) mentality.
So, municipal governance brings with it difficult choices. Often unpopular ones. In the run up to the World Cup, an opportunity was taken to upgrade the Warwick junction flyover. Warwick had previously had the dubious distinction of being the site with the highest pedestrian fatalities in the country. Building the flyover meant that cars could drive over the interchange, rather than through it. The hundreds of thousands of people who walk through Warwick on a daily basis appreciated the change. Accidents with pedestrian fatalities have more than halved. Sadly the loss of through-traffic has also slowed retail activity in Warwick. But that’s the trade-off that needs to be made.
At the same time, we were able to mobilise hundreds of millions of rands to also integrate the transport modes in Warwick so that those commuters waiting for public transport would not be subject to the elements and instead they could seamlessly walk to catch buses, trains or taxis. A partnership option with the private sector, who were contracted to upgrade only the rail station meant that this seamless development could become reality. This overall development, however, required that the Warwick Early Morning Market in its present form would go. Given opposition to that development, the city lost the funds that had been allocated for that development and sadly, Warwick’s commuters remain the worse off.
But some recent announcements of changes in Durban have surprised us. The proposal to move Virginia Airport for example: the rationale for the move is to create an upmarket resort and residential accommodation and some fine dining. That’s great for the fine diners, but how does it benefit the city as a whole? Will the rates or economic benefits from an upmarket resort outweigh the benefits of the airport? Has that evaluation been undertaken? It has – numerous times in fact – with the results, mostly*, showing that the economic benefits of a general aviation airport far outweigh the benefits of an upmarket resort. That does not mean such will always be the case. So why is it being undertaken? One can’t help but wonder. If Virginia Airport is ailing, does the treatment lead to greater benefits than the cure?
Another example is the recent announcement that eThekwini is allowing Liverpool United to use a valuable centrally located piece of land to so that they can open a soccer training facility. That sounds good, some would argue, but to whom do the benefits actually accrue? To the broader citizens of Durban? To Liverpool Football fans? Why not Amazulu, Golden Arrows and all of our local teams? To a small group of businessmen driving the project? Or to Liverpool Football team? And do they really need Durban’s charity? We have received a number of complaints, for example, from black-owned local entrepreneurs who feel that they are being excluded from such opportunities.
In discussions with the Mayor, he indicated to us that all such stakeholders will be accommodated and we certainly support that. The first step, though, is for the city to put all the information out for public comment. This should be done with a clear commitment by Council to a strategy that all of these opportunities are made available to the best consortium prioritising local, particularly African-owned, entrepreneurs.
* The exception is a recent Royal Haskoning’s study which found that the benefits would outweigh the costs. The basis for the study and the assumptions it made are unclear as it has been kept confidential.