Dear Gwen

Dear Gwen

Thank you for your insights. As someone who lives in a DA-run municipality I feel obliged to respond

The testimony that people should vote for the DA because it governs well comes from its own ranks, the rebuttal often the last resort of the poor and those concerned with the reality of survival in places like Blikkiesdorp, Du Noon, Heinz Park, Hangberg, Gugulethu, Ocean View, Khayelitsha, Delft, The Langa Waterfront - it becomes rather an endless list, and they are only places I have had ongoing contact with, but the way the WC is run, it can almost be predictive about the places I don't - Die Gatjie, Elsies, Atlantis, Kuilsriver, Eersterivier, Manenberg, Hanover Park, and so on and so forth

Which answers your first point about the DA supporting 'a greater share of indigent households'. That metric, accolade or ranking means naught to the share of indigent households you don't.

Then, the number of indigent households decreased in Gauteng despite it having twice the number of people than the Western Cape, whose numbers of indigent households increased over the same period. Your reasoning around this - that the justification lies in the value of the baskets that you on average offer, and from which you can conclude the DA is not a laggard when it comes to delivering to the poor - That's not it. The number of indigent households didn't increase because you're doing such a great job (?), but because the share of indigent households you're not supporting have escalated, and the lack of effective addressing of the challenges of Homelessness and the needs of the Housing Insecure has instead succeeded, in criminalizing those so put-upon. 'Service-delivery' protests in Cape Town are invariably perceived by your party as a challenge to this narrative you yourself are presenting here, and confronted as political positioning where the community gets held responsible for the criminal element in their midst, and that criminal element then gets to share with local government the conviction that poor people are to live conditionally under rules and regulations they impose, and overstepping them will be met with swift cruelty. The bizarre thing is, you only need pay attention to what non-political ly-affiliated groups like Stop COCT is saying, to understand that all the shortcomings around Services and Waste Management is only partly from poor people and there is much decrying from the ranks of the rate-payers and middle classes desperately unhappy with The City's performance (certainly around pricing and access) in this regard.

'Taxpayer money is spent more prudently' This is a really tricky one. Nora Grose handed herself over to the Hawks after being investigated for the misappropriation of Covid relief funds meant to help an indigent community. DA mayor Dan Plato has got The City paying her legal costs and she is on the DA's list for the local elections. My interpretation of this is, if The City can so boldly, publicly get behind one of their own suspected of criminality, what is it that they agree to privately? A metric, an accolade or a standard that claims spending tax-payer money more 'prudently', in the light of this, is a little hard to take serious. Since all other challenges to such a statement has always been that the DA is doing the most for the poor, may I repeat what I've said before (echoed by both The Premier, The Mayor and various Civic and Community Organizations), Local Government cannot do this on their own. Your dubious 'prudency' in this regard, again, fairly meaningless to those indigent households who don't have your share of support. And The Mayor's rank insistence that all of that needs to be made off as an 'attack on his office' and that Grose has 'suffered enough' is beyond comprehension . This curious attitude has been by implication, the approach of The DA here in The Western Cape.

A policy informs that approach, hence my gratitude at having your ear. In policy, the DA disregards any evaluation of their approach, actions and intentions (that doesn't ascribe to these metrics, accolades and rankings ) and holds themselves above reproach.

Such behaviour of course is not as unimaginable as one would think, let me again mention 'well-intentioned' Apartheid with its cornucopia of merits, accolades and rankings. And the passionate support from those who believed it their due. I want to remind you of the justifications for the destruction of District Six - all symptoms of disregard, oppression and inhumanity - that made it a people's own fault that their very homes were destroyed and the land declared for 'White People'. You'd be surprised, I hope, at the number of people in your own party who found, and still finds it a 'rational' approach to the upliftment of people. The same group who measures what happens in indigent communities by how it affects they themselves.

Which brings us to your point about 'incremental changes'.

It's interesting that the debate around policy and implementation has now resolved to 'better than nothing' being better than 'give me what everyone is getting'. As Head Of Policy I imagine this is then policy for The DA?

This you have determined through working with more indigent households than other provinces. Because you offer bigger baskets. Because you can prove 'dire consequences' where there hasn't been sustained and incremental gains.

Can I, with access to services such as water and electricity and the luxury of making a different plan (in itself a nightmare and not really the clever comeback to those who themselves are challenged by DA policy, procedure and politicking here in Cape Town) say:

Your sustained and incremental gains I am afraid does not answer the deep horrors of Service Delivery Failure and the Punitive approach to indigent households without the privilege of your support here in the WC. Incrementing from that is not it. We need a change in approach. And the idea that the the DA is here campaigning to be a 'new' government, this promise of 'more' and that flip reminder to 'Keep The Cape DA' can only be read as a strong promise of much of the same.

PS Housing Insecure people are fast-tracked for criminalization with their arrest now mandated by Law. They are of the most marked of our indigent communities (Don't say that to JP Smith, he's finally succeeded in making Homelessness the problem of the court, and finding a lawful way to remove Homeless People from sight - of course, he doesn't put it like that. He also has a problem with people who are NOT homeless, concerning themselves with the City's approach to the plight of Homeless People. And how doing so indicates that Empathy is really an evil thing - he doesn't mince words, does JP)

So it IS going to get better. Incrementally. We'll see less Homeless People on the street. People with no money and no homes are going to be fined, and when they can't pay, they'll be arrested. We won't have to see the desperation, the destitution and the despair. Incrementally better. The fact is that the most indigent amongst us has to be coerced to join the City's programs, and that the success of such programs are never quantified - the amount of actual available beds in actual shelters versus the number of Homeless People does not bear comparison - but The City maintains they have enough, I'm sure backed up by some of those stats you extrapolated - they don't. The manifestation of The City's approach to Homelessness was wrenchingly revealed by the monstrosity that was Strandfontein Resettlement Camp - I knew a couple of people who were taken there and dropped back in town after outcries of human rights atrocities, but the City dug in its heels and accused the HRC of attacking its personnel. Community activists and representatives of civic organisations were branded and profiled. Like with Blikkiesdorp, a Resettlement Camp become home for many, and growing daily, Strandfontein has now become a forgotten thing.

There is much needed in the Western Cape. Much more than these incremental steps you are suggesting is the 'more' promised by your election campaigning

'Better than nothing'.

When till then the offer has been nothing ie those indigent households who don't have your support