Listening to the silent majority

[120]

One mayor told me that he met with representatives of the Sofasonke Party in his town.^102. ‘They wanted to see our so-called master plan. According to rumours spread by Sofasonke itself, in five years nobody would have to pay a service charge to the town council any more. Where did they exactly get this fairy-tale from? That was the question. We knew the Sofasonke leadership was making up stories, but how to trace the source? ‘There will be nothing of the kind, except in your dreams,’ we

102. Here I was continuing my conversation with the mayors and former mayors at the Johannesburg Sun Hotel

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assured these misled people. They replied that they would take us to court to obtain the ‘master-plan’. I said, ‘Do so, by all means, but with whose money are you going to take us to court?’ The mayor: ‘We had received approval from the tpa to move on a loan by the town council. Although we are an autonomous town council and a local authority, we are still subject to such approvals from the tpa. Sofasonke might have caught some information about this loan, which they simply equated with dreams for some future Utopian state of affairs, in which in the post-apartheid era nobody needed to pay anything anymore to anyone. They, the Sofasonke people, were telling the community already that they now had a case against the mayor and the council. They were assuring them that their lawyers were going to take care of everything. That is the typical way, in which Sofasonke tries to curry favour with the public and the innocent voters who don't know what is going on. In the meantime, they are very much aware that they have no case against us, but in the eyes of the people, Sofasonke is fighting for them. If that isn't wasting the people's money, I don't know what is,’ said the angry mayor.

He continued, ‘Then we presented Sofasonke with a breakdown of the township rentals. They wanted us to cut down on services rendered by the council. We asked them, you tell us, what services should we cut down? Every penny we pay out covers only the minimum needs anyway. There's nothing we can cut down. Electricity? It's the way you whites consume electricity. How can we, as a town council influence or teach residents to use less electricity and save the energy? Dy you understand how difficult it is to administer a township?’

‘But then,’ said one of his colleagues, ‘we don't get the proper backing from the tpa. We actually feel that all mayors in the Vaal region should collectively approach the tpa and table our problems, because we are all very dissatisfied with the present situation. The tpa simply says that it cannot get more deeply involved with the affairs of the various municipalities. But they are involved. And they are deeply involved as well.’

I asked, ‘Has there ever been an Indaba-type meeting between all the Vaal Region mayors and the tpa?’ ‘No, it never has happened,’ was the unanimous reply of the five mayors and former mayors. ‘But we think it's high time this is now organised, because this lawlessness should be thrashed out, including the unacceptable undermining actions of Sofasonke.’ But one mayor suggested, ‘The question is whether the

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tpa is properly geared up to bring together all the mayors in Transvaal to discuss vital issues concerning the townships.’ I asked: ‘But that's ridiculous. That's what they are there for, aren't they?’ One mayor, dropping his voice, ‘I simply think they don't want to arrange for an Indaba by all the mayors.’ I repeated ‘Why not, it is in everybody's vital interest?’ ‘It should be,’ said the mayors, ‘but they are not going to do it. At one time, last year, the tpa called a meeting of town councillors in Albert Street. Instead of turning it into a meeting of receiving suggestions from these town councillors, they made it into a completely one-sided affair, by which the Administrator and the Chairman of the mec's^103. were simply dictating their views to us.’ ‘I was one of the people present,’ said one mayor, ‘and I was even taken to task for raising certain issues, which concerned the townships directly. This former Chairman flatly scolded me. That was also the last meeting of that type ever to be held.’

I then had a discussion with the group of five, as to what would be the best way of suggesting an Indaba of mayors in the Transvaal, which they all considered a matter of some urgency. The discussion ended with the proposal that mayor Philip Nhlapo of Mhluzi, President of ucasa should bring such a proposal in their name to the tpa. I did pose some questions on this matter to Mr Nhlapo, when I interviewed him and he seemed agreeable to the idea, provided the Transvaal mayors presented him with a request of this nature, to arrange an Indaba of mayors with the tpa.

103. Member of the Executive Committee of the TPA