Hans-Jurie Moolman (DA Caucus leader in the JB Marks Municipality) writes:

It is not my intention to enter into an ideological debate with Mr Rajah or theories that is not backed by facts. (Read Mr Suliman Rajah’s letter here)

The DA is a non-racial party and we not believe that the human dignity any South African should be afforded, can and should be determined on the basis of any of the listed grounds in section 9 of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa.

This also applies to the payment of rates and taxes and access to basic services. In response to Mr Rajah’s letter it is significant to note that Mr Rajah has not read the founding papers in support of the the DA’s court application and if he did he has clearly and seriously mischaracterised the basis upon which the court was/is approached. He should perhaps read it again.

Courts are not forums where ideology and theories are tested. Court cases are determined based of facts and the application of the law (Informed by the Constitution and statutes) to the facts. South Africa is a constitutional democracy founded, amongst others on the Supremacy of the Law.

Municipal boundaries are determined in accordance with the Local Government: Municipal Demarcation Act. The criteria that applies are prescribed in section 24 and 25 of the said legislation and the outcome of any decision is described in section 155 of the Constitution.

The Constitution prescribes an outcome of “Equitable and Sustainable” service delivery when municipal boundries are changed. I do not know where Mr Rajah stays, but if he stays in Potchefstroom or Ventersdorp he would, like me and all other residents, have notice that ten years, post merger brought all but “equitable and sustainable” service delivery.

It is further uncontested and an uncontestable fact that neither the merger and the process to demerge the municipalities (currently before the courts) did not involve public participation. The kind of place where Mr Rajah, like other residents, would have been enabled to present his views without the need to write letters to the Herald to an try and justify the total disregard for the views of our community.

It is not the DA that failed the people of Ventersdorp and Potchefstroom and that made it necessary to try and hide monumental leadership and governance failures behind a merger and to the detriment of the the residents of both towns.

The DA should also not be blamed when it actually cares about the devastating results and actually, in the face of total silence of the architects of the merger, fights to reverse and undo a monumental mess. A monumental mess that each and every resident experience day in and day out via water and electricity interruptions, sewerage boiling over in people’s houses and running into our rivers, roads full of potholes, failing and ageing infrastructure and over R 4billion’s irregular fruitless and wasteful, unauthorised and irregular expenditure for which no-one is held accountable.

The DA is not perfect where we govern, but even in accordance with measurables, that gets applied at a national level, we outperform all other municipalities in the country.

I look forward to Mr Rajah’s next letter and after he took a trip around both Ventersdorp and Potchefstroom and come and tell the residents of both towns that,what he saw, amounts to the “equitable and sustainable” service delivery that the merger, that he supports, was supposed to achieve.

Let him come and explain how he sees the status quo as the Utopia that should be supported and allowed to continue and let democracy decide whether he is/was right.