Cape Town's Two-Tiered Reality: Why the DA's 'Best-Run City' Is a Lie

Cape Town is my home. I was born here, raised and live here, and have spent three decades working in and with municipalities across South Africa from Chief Director at the Western Cape Department of Provincial and Local Government during Project Consolidate, to Director of HRD at SALGA, to programme manager at the Development Bank of Southern Africa. I have sat in council chambers, walked flooded alleys in Khayelitsha, convened ward committees in Mitchells Plain, and trained councillors.

So I speak as both a son of this city and a professional who knows what good local government looks like. And I say this without hesitation: the DA’s “best-run city” slogan is a lie.

The Architecture of Exclusion

The DA has perfected a myth  that its governance in Cape Town is efficient, clean, and pro-poor. In reality, it has entrenched apartheid-era patterns of privilege and neglect. Budgetary choices, service delivery patterns, and spatial planning decisions consistently benefit affluent, predominantly still white suburbs while relegating Black African and Coloured communities on the Cape Flats to death traps, indignity, despair and decay. 

This is not opinion. It is fact, borne out by the City’s own budget books, infrastructure allocations, and daily tragedies in our neighbourhoods. Cape Town is a city split in two: one polished for tourists and property investors, the other condemned to neglect. 

Housing: Proximity Denied

There are more than 400 000 families on Cape Town’s housing waiting list. Some, like Cheryl-Ann Smith, applied in 1993 and are still waiting. In Mitchells Plain alone, 15 000 people are on the list.

Yet the City’s 2024/25 budget allocates R0 to well-located inner-city social housing in Woodstock, Salt River or the Foreshore  despite court orders and the availability of public land. Instead, only R2.55 billion is channelled to peripheral townships like Blue Downs and Atlantis, far from jobs and schools. Apartheid Spatial planning is not only alive, it is entrenched.

The refusal to release the Tafelberg site in Sea Point for social housing symbolises this betrayal. The DA preserves elite enclaves while forcing working families into two-hour commutes. That is not “best-run”; it is deliberate exclusion.

Water and Sanitation: Apartheid Patterns Persist

Cape Town boasts of “record investment” in water and sanitation, but the allocations reveal who matters most. The Camps Bay Pump Station alone received R427 million nearly three times the sanitation budget for Masiphumelele, a poor informal settlement. 

In Gugulethu, raw sewage flows through streets. In Philippi, groundwater contamination threatens health. In Khayelitsha’s “Covid” informal settlement, no sanitation plan exists at all.

Meanwhile, new fixed water and sanitation charges linked to property values add R300 per month to many township households punishing the poor for services they don’t receive.

Energy: Children Dying in the Dark

Only 3% of Cape Town’s energy budget is allocated to informal settlement electrification a meagre R254 million. Backyarders have no safe power solutions, and there are no township solar training programmes for unemployed youth.

The human cost is horrific. In September 2023, four children Lihle and Lusindo Dyamdeki, Storm Scholtz and Awam Simanga  were electrocuted in Klipfontein Mission. In 2017, two brothers died in Philippi East after touching stray wires from an unrepaired streetlight. 

Meanwhile, the DA pours R621 million into an Atlantis solar plant and R1.27 billion into Steenbras hydro upgrades that primarily benefit affluent areas and commercial zones. A “green city” for some, but death by neglect for others.

Transport: Apartheid Mobility Lives On

Seventy percent of Capetonians use minibus taxis. But the DA spends billions on freeways and CBD projects:

• R940 million for the Foreshore Freeway,
• R1.96 billion for N1/N2 interchanges,
• R663 million for CBD upgrades.

Meanwhile, after more than 10 years in operation, MyCiTi avoids most working-class areas. In Bishop Lavis, children still walk to school along dangerous, unlit roads. In Philippi, winter floods cut residents off from work. Bonteheuwel’s walking and cycling project got R275 million less than a third of what the CBD freeway alone received.

Mobility apartheid is alive. The DA governs for car commuters from suburbs, not domestic workers from Khayelitsha. Taxi owners are being criminalized and poor commuters punished.

Safety: Preventable Deaths

Cape Town’s safety budget tops R7 billion, but it does not protect the poor.

• In 2025, a child nearly drowned in Parkwood due to blocked drains.
• In 2021, two-year-old Imthande Swartbooi died after falling into an uncovered manhole in Khayelitsha.
• The same year, four children died when a sinkhole collapsed in Nyanga.
• In 2016, Sinoxolo Mafevuka was raped and killed in a communal toilet in Khayelitsha because the City failed to provide safe sanitation.

These are not accidents. They are the deadly consequences of neglect.

Budgets That Burden the Poor

• Cape Town’s 2024/25 budget entrenches inequality:
• Transport (R11.5bn): benefits CBD commuters.
• Energy (R8.27bn): favours commercial zones.
• Water/Sanitation (R9.25bn): skewed to wealthy suburbs.
• Informal electrification: just R254m, or 3% of the budget.

On top of this, the City introduced multiple fixed charges. Families in Coloured working-class suburbs where property values rose but incomes stagnated now face unsustainable bills.

Public participation? 87% of submissions opposed the budget. The DA ignored them.

DA Myths vs Reality

• Myth 1: Clean audits = good governance. Clean audits mean books balance. They don’t mean toilets flush or drains clear.
• Myth 2: Record spend = pro-poor government. Billions flow to CBD freeways, not township streets.
• Myth 3: Migration makes inequality inevitable. Leadership is about choices. The DA chooses to protect privilege.

Hypocrisy Exposed

President Cyril Ramaphosa recently said the ANC must learn from DA municipalities. We should learn from anyone. But let us be clear: the DA’s “success” is a façade. It governs for privilege, not people. Its clean audits hide dirty streets. Its big projects bypass the Flats. Its PR campaigns mask systemic failure.

Just ask families in Gugulethu who wade through sewage, or mothers in Philippi who bury children electrocuted by stray wires. Ask backyard dwellers in Mitchells Plain who still share buckets in 2025.

That is the DA’s Cape Town. 

Towards One City, Not Two

Capetonians deserve one city, one standard. That means:

• 72-hour repairs for leaks, 7-day streetlight fixes, 98% refuse collection, potholes filled in 7 days in every ward.
• Five inner-city social housing projects financed and delivered within 12 months.
• Safe electricity for backyarders, township solar training for youth.
• Taxi subsidy pilots, Safe School Zones in 50 schools, sidewalks and drainage fixes on the Flats.
• Tariff reform to protect low-income households.
• Ward meetings monthly, minutes online within 7 days, and grievance turnaround of 14–30 days.
  
• Consequence: councillors and officials who fail must face removal.

Conclusion: Service, Not Spin

Cape Town is not failing because of lack of money or skill. It is failing because of political choices that prioritise privilege over people.

The DA can spin, crow and boast. But Capetonians live the truth every day: two cities in one metro. One of polished freeways and glossy audits. Another of sewage, stray wires, shack fires, and endless waiting lists.

True governance is not about clean audits or press statements. It is about fairness, dignity and equity. And by that test, the DA fails.

Capetonians like all South Africans deserve better. We deserve one city, not two. We deserve service, not spin. We deserve a government that governs for all of us not just the privileged few.

* Faiez Jacobs, proud but frustrated Capetonian.

** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media.