Address by executive mayor councillor Zintle Peter
Keynote address by executive mayor Zintle Peter at the City development conference on tuesday 13 March 2007
[All Protocol]
Programme Director, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I want to welcome you all warmly to this City Development Strategy Conference knowing that we are all here with a common purpose – to focus our collective energies on the challenge of building a better future for our city-region.
Our 1996 Constitution, and the legislation that followed it regulating local authorities, established some very important founding principles that imposed on us the obligation to break with the exclusive and oppressive political culture of the past, and to govern differently.
Our Bill of Rights enshrined extensive rights and freedoms for all citizens and came to be regarded as a world benchmark of liberal governance. It affirmed the fact that we are one nation with one destiny.
The Municipal Systems Act of 2000 made it clear that we were compelled to make meaningful and real, the commitment made at Kliptown in 1955: that in a new and democratic South Africa, it is “the people [that] shall govern”.
I do believe that Buffalo City as a local authority has led the way over the past few years to give effect to the spirit and letter of this legislation. We have functional ward committees and a well-documented annual process of reviewal of our integrated development plan. No citizen or group in Buffalo City can claim that they are not given the opportunity to have their voice heard.
Most recently, late last year my office initiated a series of community consultations that were billed as “Mayoral Imbizos”. I want to remind you what I said at the launch of that process in the Sisa Dukashe stadium in Mdantsane:
Our communities collectively constitute the Municipality’s most significant and influential partner in the administration and management of the affairs of our people, and in driving Buffalo City’s developmental agenda. Your presence here today shows that you also share and support this principle, and are ready to play your own role in the ongoing reconstruction of our communities. This is a welcome show of commitment on the part of each and every one here, and we salute you.
Of course, I am aware that this City Development Strategy Conference has drawn a significantly different cross-section of stakeholders, both from Buffalo City and beyond, to the 4,000 people who enjoyed the day at Sisa Dukashe. But I must equally express my gratitude and appreciation to all of you for supporting this process, for lending your personal insight and wisdom to the valuable collective insights that have emerged, and continue to emerge out of the CDS process.
Your presence here demonstrates that you continue to believe that you have a voice, that your voice will be heard, and that this historic process is an important watershed in the building of a new Buffalo City.
This is a positive affirmation of our interdependence as members of an inclusive society, of the fact that we are people because of people. We therefore welcome all of your contributions.
Out of this process, we are hopeful that a developmental compact will be built that will have enough persuasive power to create a compelling case for inward investment, and will create a new momentum for growth throughout the region.
Programme Director, ladies and gentlemen, I read in the Book of Proverbs: “Without a vision, the people perish.” Our founding fathers and mothers framed in our Constitution a vision that was mindful of the place of pain from which we had come, and held up to all of us a picture of the place of hope to which we wanted to go.
We had inherited a legacy of deprivation – having been cruelly deprived of freedom, dignity, hope, education, property, land, economic prospects, even life itself – and we wanted a future where such indignity and tyranny could not happen again, where our full human and communal potential could be nurtured and brought to fruition.
We wanted a future in which, as our Finance Minister recently said, human lives would have equal worth.
I remind all of us of these things so that we are under no illusion as to why we are here – why Buffalo City has initiated a process of crafting a City Development Strategy.
We are always mindful of our objective and guiding star as a local government, encapsulated in section 152 and 153 of the Constitution:
- we must provide democratic and accountable government to local communities through participatory processes;
- we must ensure the provision of services to communities in a sustainable manner;
- we must promote social and economic development;
- we must promote a safe and healthy environment; but
- we must do all these things mindful of our developmental duty to prioritise the basic needs of our communities, and to redress the legacy of deprivation that still lives with us today.
Our President has again reminded us of this in the State of the Nation Address of 9 February, as he called on all South Africans to intensify our joint efforts to improve social cohesion:
For us [he said] it is not a mere cliché to assert that the success of our democracy should and will be measured by the concrete steps we take to improve the quality of life of the most vulnerable in our society… [But] … none of the great social problems we have to solve is capable of resolution outside the context of the creation of jobs and the alleviation and eradication of poverty. This relates to everything, from the improvement of the health of our people, to reducing the levels of crime, raising the levels of literacy and numeracy, and opening the doors of learning and culture to all…
This is exactly why we cannot tire of reiterating our commitment to the vision towards which we has been striving for the past six years: we want a Buffalo City that is “a people-centred place of opportunity where the basic needs of all are met in a safe, healthy and sustainable environment.”
This is a goal that is both morally and politically correct, on which we cannot compromise. But the question that we wrestle with is how do we translate our vision in practical ways into the better life that we long for? Rhetoric does not create jobs, and vision statements do not feed children.
I am told that research by Professor William Starbuck of the University of Oregon has shown that strategic planning has no measurable impact on the performance of private sector companies. His thesis is that this is due to the fact that the assumptions and predictions on which we base our planning very seldom conform to the somewhat unpredictable way in which events actually happen.
But much as we know that without a vision, we risk a lack of purpose and direction, and that without a road-map, we risk wandering in the wilderness and never seeing the promised land of a better life for all, so equally an old proverb reminds us that “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
So while we know that the great majority of our people yearn for a place that nurtures and rewards entrepreneurial spirit, that cares for the vulnerable and those on the margins of society, and that provides a place in the sun for all today’s and tomorrow’s citizens, we have to continually ask ourselves: What can we as a city practically do to advance this vision and translate it into reality? And how can we as a citizenry focus our collective efforts on stoking the fires of our ship’s engine so that this boat takes as many people as possible forward as fast as possible to the better future for which we all yearn?
This is a question that all of us need to be asking, because it will remain true that none of us can comfortably enjoy the fruits of growth unless we do everything we can to ensure that the benefits of such growth are shared as widely as possible.
We have as a municipality tried to grasp this developmental nettle through our annual processes of Integrated Development Planning, with our most recent IDP Review distilling five central challenges for the municipality:
- We recognized that we lacked a clearly-defined and long-term development strategy – a road-map to a better future.
- We have low economic growth, high unemployment and high levels of poverty and inequality.
- Our revenue-base is under pressure and our efforts to address the basic needs of the poor are at risk of proving unsustainable.
- Many households still lack adequate transport, social services, access to economic opportunities and an environment that nurtures their communal humanity.
- We risk using our natural resources in an unsustainable manner that will compromise the interests of future generations.
In relation to each of these challenges, we set ourselves objectives in order to take the city forward:
- We need to put in place a clearly-defined and long-term development strategy that can galvanise all stakeholders to take forward Buffalo City’s vision in tangible ways.
- We need to create an enabling environment for an economy that is growing, diversifying, generating increasing numbers of quality jobs and reducing inequalities in our society.
- We need to find innovative ways to grow our revenue-streams and improve the efficiency of our financial management.
- We want a city-region that is characterized by sustainable human settlements in which people can live secure, fulfilled and dignified lives.
- We need to ensure that our developmental practices are managed in a way that meets the needs of our people now, without compromising the rights of our children to meet their own needs.
But inasmuch as our IDP processes over the years have enabled us to make measurable progress, we have also come to recognise that the planning tools that we have been utilizing, which are legally imperative, do not necessarily serve us well in meeting the longer-term challenges of building a productive, inclusive, sustainable and well-governed city-region – a region that is able to attract investment, develop and maintain our infrastructure, retain our assets and provide attractive opportunities to our citizens. The corollary of this would be the social cohesion that we all seek.
Again and again, our people have been crying out for jobs, for the opportunity to be productive and self-sufficient. No self-respecting adult South African is happy to be an eternal dependant on welfare – our people want the dignity that comes from productive work.
But the dilemma that we face is that Buffalo City’s economy is too dependent on a few primary industries, and – notwithstanding the country’s solid macro-economic fundamentals and steady growth – the formal manufacturing sector has been under ever-increasing competitive pressure over the past twenty years.
This is a phenomenon that is not unique to Buffalo City or South Africa, as the global village becomes increasingly integrated, as trade barriers are removed and as China and India follow the “Asian Tigers” as low-cost producers of quality goods.
To add to our challenge, we have to find ways to ensure that the quality of our municipal infrastructure and assets does not degenerate to the point where a vicious cycle of decay becomes counter-productive to the prospects of economic growth and job-creation.
But notwithstanding our many challenges, we were not elected to whinge – that is the prerogative of those voices who prefer the role of perennial doomsayers.
As leaders, we need to recognize that we have a developmental duty that we cannot shirk – we need to identify the most viable route towards sustainable long-term development and job-creation, and then we need to foster the kind of partnerships with other spheres of government, with state-owned enterprises, with the private sector and with the masses of our people in order to put the region on a new and positive growth trajectory.
That is why we have acted decisively, following international best practice and together with our metropolitan big brothers and sisters and the secondary cities that make up the South African Cities Network, to engage in a process of articulating a City Development Strategy.
Where our IDP is a five-year plan largely focused on the services of the public sector, a City Development Strategy is a longer-term plan that stretches far beyond the term of one Executive Mayor, which – as I have said before – will pass soon enough.
It is intended as a tool of mobilization to galvanise leadership around common developmental purposes, across all spheres of government, civil society and the private sector.
The aim is singular and focused: it is not to create empires, it is not to build grand monuments or to leave legacies to one’s ego, but rather it is to build a better life for our people.
The City Development Strategy process thus far has included a wide range of stakeholders as well as experts numerous fields, and we are excited at the quality of creative energy that has been brought to bear on our longer-term development challenges.
Some fresh perspectives and assumptions have underpinned the CDS thinking thus far, and they are worth sharing:
1. Firstly, we can only make a decisive impact on poverty through sustainable and shared growth
Buffalo City’s CDS is a strategy for a city-region that views the area as an engine of shared economic development that will have a direct impact on poverty reduction, local economic growth and improved governance.
The CDS thus measures poverty reduction through the extent of shared growth.
For the poor and the marginalized, jobless growth is a bitter fruit – freedom will remain a hollow victory without a regular meal on the table.
2. Secondly, accelerating urban development will alleviate rural poverty.
Our belief is that a successful Buffalo City is critical to the pressing need to relieve rural poverty in the region.
Our provincial growth and development strategies have thus far seemed to concentrate more on creating sustainable rural livelihoods, but we believe that long-term sustainable development requires that more attention must be paid to the challenge of developing the fuller potential of the cities and towns.
While Buffalo City is keenly aware of the interdependence of urban and rural areas, the kind of growth that is necessary to meet the millennium development goals, to create jobs and to reduce poverty, can only come from building on the competitive strengths of the economic engines that exist in our urban centres.
The CDS is therefore a strategy for the growth and development of a functional and productive region as much as it is for the urban core consisting of the East London-Mdantsane-Bisho-King William’s Town spine.
3. Thirdly, our growth trajectory will only be altered through the “crowding in” of public investment in catalytic infrastructure
Our view is that sustainable and shared growth will only happen if there is a significant commitment of public resources to fund transformative projects that will increase Buffalo City’s competitiveness as an investment destination and improve the mobility of goods, services and people.
A key premise in Buffalo City’s approach in creating a broad city development framework is to rally public resource allocation to create economic multipliers, based on the belief that the future can be shaped through catalytic interventions.
In the words of another proverb, we need to cast our bread upon the waters for it to return to us.
The central premise of our CDS is that growth in a city-region anchored by Buffalo City can only be ensured if significant state-led investment in economic and social infrastructure is implemented continuously over the longer term of up to 30 years.
4. Fourthly, we need to complement our shorter-term business retention and economic development strategies by anticipating economic transition.
We have been forced to face the fact that as a secondary city in a globalizing world, we do not presently have the inherent comparative advantages that would allow us to compete effectively for foreign direct investment.
An alternative and more productive approach may be to prepare the city-region for an economic structural transition and to focus public infrastructure investments in a manner that would anticipate such change.
5. Fifthly, we need to build alliances of shared interests.
We must recognize that accelerated and shared growth in our city-region will require an unprecedented level of inter-agency and inter-governmental cooperation. The aim of our City Development Strategy process is to build a broad alliance between the key development actors to ensure effective implementation of a joint agenda for action.
Failure is certain for any local government that attempts to, or is left to act alone.
6. Lastly, we need to create indirect impact.
We know that Buffalo City on its own does not control the key variables that impact upon the successful implementation of its strategic agenda. The City Development Strategy is being hatched in an environment of complex government structures, multiple development agencies and often competing interests from stakeholders. We know that we will have to find creative and effective ways to influence institutional behaviour.
To do this, the CDS must be a conceptual and flexible framework through which other actors are able to react and respond, rather than a rigid framework for the implementing of specific projects within our control.
Another important informant to the crystallizing shape of our CDS has been the National Spatial Development Perspective (NSDP).
The policy position of government nationally, as reflected in the NSDP, has been that investment should target places with the highest economic potential.
Much as this logic can be called into question when one begins to argue the redistribution imperatives of South Africa’s political economy, for Buffalo City it translates into a recognition that scarce resources will deliver the best return for the greatest number of citizens if they are focused on the urban cores of East London, Mdantsane, King William’s Town and Bisho.
If we want to optimize our growth potential, we cannot fault the argument that strong economic performance in the Buffalo City urban nodes will strengthen the city-region as a whole, and provide us with the best possible prospect of accelerated and shared growth, and the sustainable alleviation of poverty.
Programme Director, ladies and gentlemen: one of the critiques that could perhaps be leveled at this logic is that it entrenches an urban bias that will condemn tens of thousands of our people to an economically stagnant and survivalist future while they wait for the benefits of urban growth to trickle down to them. But this would not be doing justice to the fact that the central agenda of addressing the endemic poverty of the majority of Buffalo City’s citizens in a sustainable way, remains the cornerstone of our thinking.
Poverty reduction is not for us an optional extra, or a welcome but incidental side-effect of our City Development Strategy. It is an integral part of what we want to achieve in every aspect of the CDS.
It is not politically feasible or morally correct for us to adopt a strategy for growth that increases economic and social polarization, and entrenches apartheid feudalism, where the rich get fatter behind high walls, while the poor are left to rot in their slums.
In conclusion, ladies and gentlemen, and without wanting to steal the thunder of the presenters that will follow me, allow me to share some of the exciting ideas that have emerged from the process thus far.
I am greatly encouraged by the broad and strong consensus that has emerged among all stakeholders that if Buffalo City is to meet its developmental challenges, if we are to grow jobs and reduce poverty and reliance in a sustainable way, if we are able to see the challenge of a future beyond ourselves, then we have to upgrade our connections with the world around us.
This includes the deepening and enlargement of our port and the improvement of road, rail and air links, particularly with the Gauteng region where the centre of gravity of South Africa’s economy lies.
It includes the upgrading of the R72 that Gwynn Bassingthwaite has been championing, but Gwynn, it must also include the N2 corridor which is critical to the economic development of our inland areas.
The growing consensus reflected in our CDS also recognizes the need to promote the city as part of a region: the eastern part of the Eastern Cape is the poorest and least developed part of the province. The city must position itself to be the catalyst for growth in the rural hinterland and take proactive steps to ensure that it is appropriately serviced.
This must include gearing ourselves up to service several ASGI-SA projects in the area, for example the Umzimvubu agricultural irrigation scheme and commercial timber initiatives. We believe that we are well-positioned to add value with a particular focus on beneficiation.
Of course, the recapitalizing of municipal infrastructure is going to be a perennial challenge: dealing with the city’s water and sanitation problems and electricity backlogs, and creating a modern and compliant waste management system.
We know that a local government that performs its core functions efficiently will grow organically, and that in order to retain the present economic drivers of the region, as well as to attract new industry, will require that the city’s infrastructure is refurbished and extended to make us a more attractive investment destination. For Eddie Botha, this includes the road to Gonubie!
Another strategy that we believe has strong multiplier potential is the releasing of strategically-located parcels of public land as a catalyst for urban renewal and development.
Not least among these, ladies and gentlemen, our City Development Strategy must begin to integrate the so-called second economy into the mainstream economy through the promotion of the services sector and by assisting in SMME development.
Most of these interventions are of such a scale that the city alone could not possibly be expected to bring them all to fruition. Absolutely central to Buffalo City’s 20-year plan therefore is the support and involvement of provincial and national government, reflected in more serious consideration of the geopolitical importance of Buffalo City by the state-owned enterprises and in allocations from the national fiscus.
Persuading government to see the developmental logic of this approach will be one of our most important collective challenges.
Of course, a local consensus will not be sufficient: we know that we need to win support for our strategies from both our provincial and national comrades and decision-makers in order to make the decisive developmental leap forward that we believe is possible.
If we all genuinely believe that it is indeed possible – and, Programme Director, I would like to think that our presence here shows that we do – then now is the time for hope, positivity and a renewed commitment to make things happen for Buffalo City.
Ladies and gentlemen, once again, I thank you.
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