Khayelitsha Councillor: City ignores my community

This article is part of our focus on wards.

“When you drive into Khayelitsha from the N2 you are welcomed by a line of blue mobile toilets and about a kilometre from there a big green dumping container with a pile of rubbish all around it and so it continues throughout Khayelitsha.” These are the words of ward councillor Monde Nqulwana, a member of the African National Congress (ANC), elected in 2011 by his community to serve ward 89, which is a large part of Khayelitsha and includes the township’s informal settlements along the N2.

“My responsibilities as the councillor are to communicate with the residents in my community about service development issues and encourage citizens to develop their areas through public meetings,” said Nqulwana.

Situated in the municipal offices in Khayelithsa, behind the Site B library, the councillor’s office was filled with community members walking in and out requesting anything from application forms for various things to his signature.

Nqulwana told GroundUp that the people in his community complain mostly about water and sanitation issues, the unavailability of electricity and the filthy conditions they live in. He explained that in winter his community is haunted by floods which are a result of there not being a proper drainage system. He said the existing drains that are there are not being well maintained and serviced on a regular basis.

“I then communicate these issues with the administration of the city and they have to provide trucks to clean up. In cases of shack fires and floods, the city’s disaster management unit also has to assist,” explained Nqulwana.

Masemkele Mkarule is a 21-year-old resident of ward 89. He says a lot of people in his community are sick from diseases due to the filthy conditions they live in and the densely clustered shacks are a breading ground for tuberculosis. He complained that while the garbage gets picked up every week, there is always a community member that just throws their garbage anywhere. Mkarule insists that the community also needs to play their part in looking after their area.

There were service delivery protests in the area recently. When asked about them, Nqulwana insists that the protests were not against him, but against the City of Cape Town. He said that service delivery is not the direct responsibility of ward councillors, but that of the city. Nqulwana explained that councillors can only engage with the administration of the city on issues that the community tells them about, and try to solve these issues before they escalate into violent protests. “Unfortunately the City of Cape Town, which is led by the Democratic Alliance, ignores the requirements of the communities and when the Integrated Development Plan (IDP) of March 2012 came out reflecting nothing about Khayelitsha, particularly the ward in which I serve, that angered the community,” Nqulwana stated.

“The draft spoke about other areas such as Tygervalley and areas outside of Cape Town. It looked at issues of backyard dwellers to whom the city plans to give services such as their own electricity box. The priority in Khayelitsha is housing for the people, but no money was allocated for this,” Nqulwana explained.

Nqulwana, who also lives in a shack in his ward and earns a monthly salary of R30,000, says that the city allocates one cleaner per 400 shacks. He said that the city administration was ignorant about the pressing issues in communities. He emphasized that the mayor needs to understand that Khayelitsha has leaders in the form of ward councillors to assist the mayor in setting up meetings with communities for the mayor to address.

In an email, Solly Malatsi, spokesperson for Mayor De Lille, stated that Khayelitsha was consulted in the IDP process. The email includes a list of the city’s expenditure items in Khayelitsha and says that housing projects in the area are provided for in the IDP. The email is copied at the end of this article.

Another ward resident, Andile Madondile, complained that the only thing delivered in the ward is endless meetings. However, he did mention one positive change, that electricity is now being installed in RR section. He did however support the councillor’s views that the City’s IDP was not prioritising houses for the ward. “[Mayor] Patricia De Lille came to give them the report on the IDP which mentioned that houses would be provided in the Nkanini area which is located at a different ward under the management of DA councillors.”

“The mayor is focusing in areas where there are DA ward councillors, where there are ANC councillors nothing is moving thus making all the ANC led wards seem useless” said Madondile.

Madondile said that money allocated to ward 89 was not enough and a majority of it goes towards cleaning services and soup kitchens that aren’t a priority. “we want toilets, water and proper sanitation,” he said. “We have given up on the possibility of getting houses in my ward because the issue of housing is never mentioned in the budget for our area” said Madondile.

Each ward in Khayelitsha will receive R700 000 for funding of local projects such as the upgrading of community facilities/li