About FIFA Money
Saturday, February 20, 2010
By Andisiwe Makinana
Securing financial returns was the priority and the main reason the City of Cape Town implemented the first phase of the Integrated Rapid Transit System (IRT) along the West Coast, rather than in the city's poor south-eastern areas, which include Mitchells Plain and Khayelitsha.
This was confirmed by a top city council official who told the provincial parliament's standing committee on finance and economic development this week that the city's justification was that it wanted to see a financial return.
The executive director of economic and social development and tourism, Mansoor Mohamed, told the committee this week: "To put it bluntly (it was) to minimise the cost and burden on the ratepayer."
He said the city was blaming it (the prioritisation of middle-to upper-class areas) on an agreement with Fifa, which said Phase 1 must be put in place before the World Cup.
"We can hide behind that and say: 'Sorry, it's the ROD (record of understanding)', but really what it is, is purely a matter of finance.
"It's what the city can afford in terms of its envelope, and the least likely negative effect on the city's finances, because ultimately people will have to pay for it," said Mohamed.
"So the consideration taken into account when implementing the IRT is where is the likelihood of getting people from private to public transport... and clearly the corridor between Cape Town and along the West Coast (where) it's middle class, congested and needs to move over to public transport, will pay for itself sooner rather than later.
"These are the projections that were made... for financial reasons."
Mohamed added that the same principles had been used in the broadband network, "which we believe is still wrong".
"In the city centre everybody is laying fibre-optic cables, but nobody is laying them in the places like where I come from in the Cape Flats.
So I can't connect with cheap mobile calls or landlines. It's so prohibitive, so costly.
"And we all know if that were to be improved, the economy would be stimulated to such an extent that we cannot even imagine."
He said his department had submitted a report on why the laying of fibre-optic cables needed to be accelerated, and again the answer was that it was a cost issue.
"Personally I think it's wrong to do it that way because the government's role is not necessarily to reduce the costs of the private sector, but to put out our resources towards making more economic inclusion. That's our humble opinion."
Earlier in the same meeting, the head of the city's economic information and research, Jeremy Marillier, told the committee that in developing the city equitably, "you can't have, as we currently do, poverty concentration in the south-eastern areas like Mitchells Plain and Khayelitsha".
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posted @ 10:53 AM,
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