By Costa Gazi

I have been a councillor for almost eight years and I cannot recall a single occasion when the question of human rights ever came up in Buffalo City Municipality.

Local government is supposed to be at the level of “delivery” – whatever that may mean – and human rights are something regarded as far removed from such a mundane duty.

Well, delivery of services covers a multitude of things that are essential for a good life. The provision of an adequate and clean water supply; the provision of electricity, reasonable sanitation and waste removal; maintaining roads and public land for recreation; ensuring the provision of good housing in an affordable way. These are supposed to be the main concerns of local government.

In practice, we have seen the failure of delivery. Housing stands at the top of the list of failures. In my municipality there is a waiting list of 67 000 for an allocation from people who live in shacks – also called “informal settlements”. In poor areas water is supplied in a restricted way by pre-paid water meters, which are nothing more than stand-pipes. Sanitation is too often nothing more than a pit latrine. Public open space is being sold to developers to establish luxury facilities for those who can afford to pay.

These failures and most initiatives all impinge on the rights of the poor who comprise almost half of our population. The growing inequality means that services to those who pay and those who cannot pay are also widening. We are having people classified as “indigent”, “means tested” to make sure they are not being given too much of anything but just the bare minimum. Such measures actually undermine the human rights of those who thereby are deprived of the means to live a decent life.

It must never be forgotten that when the science of economics emerged in the 19th century, it was called “political economy”. That was in recognition of how inseparable it became to study one without the other in the era of national states. The free market of Adam Smith could now be influenced by government action to a lesser or greater extent, thus making it impossible to separate one from the other.

In today’s world we have managed the improbable. We have separated politics from economics in our universities, and the latter standing on its own has become the dismal science. The power of governments and their ability to control those market forces is nowadays being curtailed to a massive extent. When the World Bank is asked to grant loans to struggling poor countries they insist on “structural adjustment” which is nothing more than enforcing privatisation. This is good for trans-national corporations but bad news for the local population.

The ability of national and local government to intervene by subsidising basic services or controlling prices is curtailed and the poor get poorer. Even social services are affected and thus the rich and powerful can get their way and entrench themselves in positions of massive power and wealth. Overall this means a loss of the right to a decent life.

So if we want to entrench human rights at local level, we must revert back to the concept of “political economy” and not sterilise the two sides of the same coin by keeping them apart. If the political agenda is to entrench and deepen human rights, then the economic dimension must be incorporated. At present this is only minimally applied.

Local government sells its assets such as land and buildings to developers and loses those as a source of income. People are easily evicted to make way for so-called “projects” or because of arrears. Electricity and water cut-offs are also becoming more common. Rates are going up and leading councillors and officers are getting higher salaries and allowances without too much concern about the poor. That is tantamount to aggravating the need to deepen human rights.

Local government has the potential to be a great advocate of human rights. This is because the councillors are locally elected and thus more accountable to their constituents. But there are just too many opportunities for corruption of many kinds and it is not always easy for the electorate to spot the dedicated candidates from the careerists.

To make local government more democratic and therefore more sensitive to human rights and less likely to be corrupt, we need to have a system of electing councillors by the wards and not nominated by party bosses. We must not allow the mayors to have executive powers and the whole council itself must be the executive body. This may seem clumsy but it is more democratic.

In addition to that, any developmental action undertaken by the council must have the wholehearted backing of the people affected. Their rights must take precedence over the need to develop this or that. The council must not be hog-bound by the needs of private developers, even if they further the goals of BBBEE and also increase the rate income. Too often this has become an excuse to allow a handful of individuals to enrich themselves instead of being of service to the community.

Finally, it should not be thought that human rights are something abstract to be introduced from the dizzying heights of national politicians. It is the people themselves that must be helped to assert their rights, even when they are scolded to remember the responsibilities that go with those rights. Local government is generally more aware of local problems that concern people more than the national or international situation, and thus more likely to promote the needs – and therefore the rights – of the local people.

For now there is not enough emphasis on the rights of communities and too much emphasis on so-called development. Poverty is the biggest threat to human rights and thus must be vigorously fought against. The councils must take the lead in creating growth without tearing apart existing communities. Those communities must be nurtured and assisted to solve their problems in their own way and their own time. This will maximise the growth of their confidence in standing up for their rights. That is the kind of local government we need.

The Local Government Transformer Dec 2007/Jan 2008
Published with permission.