Conundrum for order in the House

Given the chaotic scenes in the House at the Western Cape Provincial Parliament, the past few weeks, it is clear there is no authority that demands the order.

For the DA they would not only need a suitable Speaker-candidate but there is also the vacant Chief Whip-position. A vacancy contributing to all the drama in the House. Even though there is an Acting Chief Whip, with all the powers and priveleges, it is still acting.

It might appear as if the DA is sitting with a conundrum in filling the vacancies, but within the caucus there are indeed members capable of stepping into the shoes.

Presiding Officer

First prize would be someone who has occupied the hot seat and for that reason Sharna Fernandez would be a good choice.

If continuity and stability is considered the DA might look towards Wendy Philander, one of three current rotating House Chairs. Interestingly most of the time when she presided over sittings the opposition has been friendly towards her and she has been lenient towards the opposition, giving them more attention.

A wild card who could attract alot of criticism but is capable is Andricus van der Westhuizen, this might not be an option the party will consider.

An option the DA would want to consider is Daylin Mitchell, who did well as Deputy Chief Whip. Since his transport and public works ministry was modernized to mobility, he now only condemns public transport incidents and after each road (transport) accident he issues condolences.

Whippery

Daylin Mitchell could also return to the Whippery as Chief Whip. This might also be more accepting for the rest of the caucus, he once served as deputy chair.

I've previously written that a strong candidate, who has the knowledge, to be Chief Whip is Andricus van der Westhuizen. In the position he can use the fact to being one of the older members in the House to get respect and maintain order. 

Should Wendy Philander, who is also DA Women's leader in the province, not be presiding officer she could be considered to maintain order amongst members. Another female and for continuity would be Deidre Baartman, current Deputy Chief Whip.

First prize for the DA would be the party's Federal Chairperson, Ivan Meyer. He is a former chief director of provincial training, lecturer in public policy and local governance and has published work on education, housing, local government and public administration.

Should Fernandez, Mitchell or Meyer vacate the executive, it is highly unlikely Premier Alan Winde will make major changes. He will most probably just fill the vacancy with either Philander or Dan Plato.

The position of Chief Whip become vacant after the sad passing on of Lorraine Botha, in August.

By end November the position of Speaker of the Western Cape Legislature became vacant, on a point of technicality when Masizole Mnqasela's political party membership was terminated. This resulted in him losing his seat as member of the legislature, thus creating the Speaker vacancy.

Mnqasela indicated to his now former party he will approach the courts to reinstate his party membership. This and the fact that he was not removed as Speaker is no reason for the House not to elect a new Speaker.

Candidates are fit but serve what purpose?

The appointment of the first Children’s Commissioner, in not only the Western Cape but South Africa, looks set to happen within the first quarter of this new decade.

Reading the cover letters of the 15 shortlisted candidates makes me wonder if the process was not rushed to complete, losing focus of the objective.

The successful candidate will be responsible for protecting and promoting the interest of children to ensuring that crime and its impact on children and issues of child safety are address. As well as monitor, investigate, research and lobby issues and policy that impact children.

Each of the 15 candidates are qualified for the position. While it gives peace of mind it is also sad that 53% of the shortlisted candidates come from the legal fraternity.

One should keep in mind that the Children’s Commissioner will not be writing or amending any legislation. Anyone can make legislative suggestions, from the aunty running a soup kitchen to the aunty with a creche in her backyard.

The individual tasked with advocating children’s rights will only enforce but should be someone who will speak and raise all aspects of being a child, those in the city; Cape Flats; rural streets and on our farms.

There are alarming incidents involving children, in the Western Cape, from child exploitation to abduction and rape and murder. The successful candidate should thus be someone who can console a family to walking the gravel roads, protesting in the streets and engaging with stakeholders from all walks of live. Most importantly be someone who can go sit in the park with a 4-year-old with a lolly and have that child open to him or her.

As members of the Standing Committee on Social Development of the Western Cape Provincial Parliament prepare for one-on-one interviews, it is a good time to first go back to the drawing board.

The honourable members should ask themselves (and their caucuses) what do they hope and aim to achieve and what and how should the Children’s Commissioner do this. This should guide the members of the provincial parliament on who would be a suitable candidate to be the first Children’s Commissioner.

In summary the Children’s Commissioner is responsible for ensuring the needs and interest of all children in the province are met. All shortlisted candidates already in their own right qualify. 

Question is whether they meet the objective of the office with their expertise.

Click on name of shortlisted candidates for their biographies:

• Carol Bower
• Christina Nomdo
• Eric Atmore
• Gabriela McKellar
• Ingrid Lestrade
• Joy van der Heyde
• Lizelle Africa
• Lydia-Anne Plaatjies
• Lucas Muntingh
• Marlene Le Roux
• Mirinda Gaum
• Naqita Alexander
• Samantha Albertyn
• Zakira Mohamed

Winde vote for consistency or change

Votes have been counted, seats allocated and now the real work begins.

The first task of the Premier-designate, Alan Winde, will be to assemble his yes-men and woman. This includes his cabinet and over the following two weeks he will be consulting to appoint that team.

Of the former DA MPLs four are retiring, two moving to the National Assembly and 20 will be returning to the Western Cape Provincial Parliament. Except for Helen Zille retiring her entire cabinet is returning.  Winde can be consistent and only appoint a replacement for himself.

Winde and his DA caucus could also use to their advantage the fact that only 27.80% or 5 of the 18 opposition MPLs are former members and 66.70% have never served in a legislature.

A possible successor for Winde at Community Safety is chairperson of the standing committee, Mirreile Wenger. She knows the portfolio, is competent and being female counts in her favour. Being married to the whistleblower in the Patricia de Lille-saga, Craig Kesson, might raise the eyebrows though and could make a few people uncomfortable.

Another option is moving Albert Fritz, who previously occupied the position. I have two scenarios replacing Fritz at Social Development.

First scenario is Anroux Marais and being replaced at Arts, Culture and Sport by Masizole Mnqasela (let’s be honest his promotion is long overdue).

Second scenario is dr. Ivan Meyer, he previously occupied the position. This leaves vacant the all-important finance portfolio.

A prominent DA member, who served as shadow finance minister, is however moving to the legislature and rumour has it that David Maynier has his eye on the finance ministry.

Maynier was Winde’s campaign manager and fit for purpose, I have no doubt that he will be included in the executive council. The trick is that the finance portfolio is viewed as second most senior after that of premier, and both these occupied by white men in a coloured majority province is sending the wrong message.

Consistency might be a safer bet. Meyer is also deputy federal chairperson of the DA and the most senior coloured leader in the party.

Meyer could make space for Maynier and move to Local Government and Development Planning, but it is highly unlikely that Anton Bredell will move.

A likely portfolio for Bredell, who is provincial chairperson, would be to move to the vacant Chief Whip position. Some will consider this a demotion and others might raise concern at separating party and state as both positions are administrative.

If Bredell is not the new Chief Whip someone who also deserves to be considered is Beverley Schafer. Having a woman in this portfolio could also be the DA silencing critics that their shortage of female leaders.

Schafer’s move to the 5^th floor leaves vacant the Economic Opportunities portfolio, one she could possible be handing over to Maynier – unless the unlikely happen and he and Meyer swap portfolios.

Should Schafer not move another strong contender for Chief Whip is Andricus van der Westhuizen. The former MP’s move to the provincial legislature is surely not to be closer to retirement. In showing confidence in the next generation the Deputy Chief Whip position could likely go to Daylin Mitchell. To date the youngest person to become WCPP MPL and who did well in his first term.

Van der Westhuizen could likely also be deputy speaker. He was once upon a time the speaker of Stellenbosch Municipality. Another possible candidate for this position is Masizole Mnqasela, whose promotion as said is long overdue.

In the fifth parliament the second most important portfolio was occupied by a coloured woman. Considering that the former deputy speaker, Piet Pretorius, retired it is highly unlikely the DA will replace Sharna Fernandez as speaker. Despite some minor flaws, for a first term member and speaker she did well. With the Patricia de Lille-saga still fresh, not retaining her opens a can of worms – critics will have a field day ‘attacking’ the DA of how people of colour, especially woman, are rejected/demoted if they become too popular.

So here’s my three list:

Overcrowded delayed trains anticipated next 2 years

Trains in the region are subjected to be overcrowded and delayed for the next 18 to 24 months. 
Nope not an SMS-notification or announcement but what members of the Western Cape Provincial Parliament’s Standing Committee on Transport were told during a briefing by Metrorail.

Ironically the meeting started with the Metrorail delegation being delayed – not from a train, but security processes signing in.

The rail operator painted a picture of crime crippling the network, preventing it from delivering a reliable service to it’s hundreds of commuters.
Metrorail requires 88 train sets to operate a normal service, but has since October 2015 loss 101 carriages in arson-related incidents. The result? shorter trains and train cancellations. It also stated five years ago no one bothered with trains but these days more of Prasa assets are targeted.
It managed to make 200 arrest in July, 127 less than the 327 in February this year. What is interesting about this figure is for the year there has been no arrest for pick pocketing and only one for a fraudulent ticket – in March.
“It would appear as if Metrorail is now more focused on taking on rail crime than running trains,” said Nobulumko Nkondlo (ANC).
For Masizole Mnqasela (DA) it seemed as if there is no relationship between Prasa and the justice cluster, while his colleague Mark Wiley wanted to known if the State Security department is part of Metrorail’s specialised task team.
Metrorail says they not shifting the blame, but appeal that the different government agencies work with them for the rail operator to deliver a service. “We need to know why trains are burning at 1am. It cannot be because of delays, those trains were not late.”

Committee chairman, Nceba Hinana, says what concerns him is people hanging out from trains.
Although it mentioned being active on social media, commuters able to check train updates via GoMetro and SMS-notifications sent to commuters, Metrorail admitted communication is a challenge, saying they do not communicate enough to commuters.
Regional Manager, Richard Walker, shared with the committee that he himself commute by train and he also find it frustrating to arrive at a station and the electronic board is not working or don’t reflect a delay.
“One of the reasons why people board the first train arriving is because of the uncertainty if there will be a next one or what time it will arrive, adding to overcrowded trains. Part of attending to this is being more predictable.”
Metrorail’s train design team is currently re-looking the timetable and commuters could soon receive communication regarding a revised timetable, to take effect September 1st 2017. 

Two interesting points from Metrorail’s presentation of 50-slides, that even the honourable members failed to notice, is:
1) Their main stakeholder (commuters) is not included in the list of external support and partnerships.
2) Metrorail don’t now it’s own boundaries and where it runs a service. In it’s introduction it states its operations stretch across 6 municipalities and lists them as Cape Town, Drakenstein, Winelands, Breede River, Swartland and Helderberg.
Firstly a simple Google-search would have told them there is no Winelands and Helderberg municipalities. 
Secondly Metrorail’s operations stretch across: Cape Town, Drakenstein, Witzenberg, Breede Valley, Stellenbosch and Swartland.
The provincial transport minister, Donald Grant, also attended the meeting and said what is unacceptable is that commuters at times have to wait three hours for a train.
Metrorail reacted there exceptional cases do occur. 
ANC’s Cameron Dugmore says “we in agreement, Metrorail is failing and now we need to solve it together".  
He also tweeted what I’ve previously stated the problem is bigger than Metrorail. And continued: “he is not convinced the current plans are enough”.
He also suggested that Metrorail appear before the committee again, with fewer slides, and go into detail on the turn around strategy. Dugmore also want commuters and other stakeholders to be part of the meeting and give their input.
MEC Grant’s concern however is what is being done about the service for next week and next month.
Mnqasela gave the best summary of the situation: “we in a crisis and it cannot be business as usual”.


Metrorail’s solution is summarized in their accelerated turn around actions and includes:

• Increase train set availability from 60 to 65 in the next 3 months.
• Increase train set availability from 66 to 70 in the next 6 months.
• Increase train set availability from 71to 75 in the next 9 months.
• Increase train set availability from 76 to 80 in the next 12 months.
• Increase train set availability from 81 to 88 in the next 18 months.
• Reduce short trains from 86% to 50% of available trains.
• Increase reliability by
• Improving availability of rotating machines and wheels by fast track process to require components
• Availability of materials and spares by finalising regional tender process.
• Reduce signal infrastructure delays by rehabilitation of conventional signalling systems, migration of copper to fire, vandal proofing of signalling equipment and reinstatement of level crossings
• Reduce perway infrastructure delays by fast tracking procurement and approve contracts with Transnet.

Youth month should stress future possibilities

As the curtain closes on another youth month, I ask myself what remarkable change transpired in the lives of our youth during June?

Celebrations this year took place against the backdrop of several incidents of rape and murder of young children. To make matters worse the majority of perpetrators, if not all, are youngsters. If that is not enough to raise alarm bells, the fact that social challenges have played a role in almost all of these cases is significant.

We have long passed the stage of straightbacked alarm at the news of a rape or murder of a child. By now we should be sitting on the edge of our seats and asking ourselves rather earnestly, “where and when did we take a wrong turn?” Whom or what do we blame? Drug addiction, the drug lord who owns the means of our degradation, the merchants who pass the quick fix from one hand to the next? Or, are we going to blame peer-pressure?

A very good friend reminded me recently that it is tougher being a youngster today than a few years ago.

The youth of today are exposed to peer-pressure on a higher scale, communities with higher expectations from our youth – mainly because there are more opportunities – and then there is the pressure of social media.

As we put filters on our photographs, we cannot seem to do the same with our lives.

I draw the conclusion that changes in life expectations are largely to blame. Our youth are trying to keep everyone happy and to fit in. Very little focus, however, is given to our youngsters as individuals. The individual rather focuses on expectations from family, the community, friends, social media, and so on, but not their own goals, their vision.

The solution looks simple by addressing the challenges and paying attention to individual goals, but is that what we are doing? And what contribution is society, generally, making?

Something that has bothered me for some time now is the fact that we don’t give justice to the thousands of young people who, 41 years ago, stood up for what they believed to be wrong and to make shifts that finally led to a democratic South Africa.

Youth Day, and more still the month, is intended to commemorate the youth legends of yesteryear. But also to look at the challenges our youth battle with today.

Instead of doing this, Youth Day has just turned into another public holiday, an opportunity to drink, to be lazy or to just enjoy sports events.

On Youth Day I posted on Facebook: “I fail to understand why every Youth Day there is this and that sport thing. Sport is not the only thing our youth are good at and not all youths are interested in sport. Let’s not only focus on entertaining our youth but also inform and educate them to be better leaders.”

The more positive comments hold that sport unites, is healthy and promotes team spirit.

I still wonder, though: how many young people actually attend the sports events, and I don’t just mean those participating or are forced to be there.

Besides a certificate of participation and possible trophy, what else did our young people accomplish by the end of youth month?

If we want to address the challenges of our youth, we will have to be more creative than a sports event or two. If all the song, dance and sports are planned better Youth Day can be used to provide an opportunity for our young people to get information to further their studies, employment opportunities and learn more about different industries of employment.

Open days are not only for schools.

It is not only matriculants who need bursaries and do we have a database of unemployed young people in our communities?

Daylin Mitchell, member of the Western Cape Provincial Parliament, recently said in parliament the youth in our rural communities should be empowered.

What have youth development and opportunities been to young people in rural areas over the past five to seven years? How many cases are there not of an older individual, with more work experience, being employed instead of a young person with a degree, because the young person lacks the work experience? No opportunity is given, though, to the young person to gain the necessary experience.

I agree with my friend the MPL, that if young, previously disadvantaged South Africans aren’t empowered they will remain in a social void.

Youth development, then, is about presenting opportunities for the future, or we fail the Class of ’76.

• Original post appeared as Post Scriptum in Paarl Post of Thursday 6 July 2017