‘When two elephants fight, it’s the grass that suffers — and Knysna is the grass’

Daily Maverick’s Election 2024 coverage is supported, in part, with funding from the Friedrich Naumann Foundation and vehicles supplied by Ford.

By Suné Payne and Velani Ludidi

26 May 2024

As the country prepares for 29 May, many voters in Knysna have just one message – local politicians must take their mandate from residents, not from external politicians and parties.

It’s a Friday morning when Daily Maverick arrives in Knysna, a coastal municipality along the Garden Route. There are party posters everywhere: in town along the N2 and in its various suburbs.

In recent months, Knysna – the Western Cape coastal municipality famous for its breathtaking lagoon, pristine beaches, legendary seahorses and oyster festival – has made negative headlines, from sewage running into the streets, a service delivery collapse and in mid-May, a high court judgment overturning the appointment of Ombali Sebola as municipal manager.

During our visit, one common thread emerged: residents are fed up with the way in which the “jewel of the Garden Route” is run. And they have a clear message for political parties: come and see us, and let the residents of Knysna decide what’s best for their town; don’t make decisions about what’s best for the town in distant party centres.

In town, the streets are clean: residents walking with heavy shopping bags, hawkers selling goods and some people emerging from shops carrying bags of potatoes. As Daily Maverick drives into Hornlee – an area on the outskirts of the centre of the town where those classified “coloured” under the Group Areas Act were moved – it is the movement and noise of minibus taxis that fill the air.

The houses here are a mix of wooden structures and formal housing that curve around winding roads. There are several hills in Hornlee, which causes homes to appear high up in some areas, and others down below in a valley. Hornlee often erupts in protests over housing, and in one instance in 2020, Daily Maverick reported how law enforcement shot rubber bullets at protesters.

There are few people in the streets – with some walking and others hopping into the noise-filled minibus taxis. Tina Nel (60) stands in her front yard, preparing to braai fresh bread to be sold later in the day. She walks down the stone steps from her house on a hill. She was born in Knysna but moved to Cape Town, then returned to Knysna some 23 years ago. Now she runs a soup kitchen, which feeds 100 people three times a week.

In addition, Nel is a ward committee member entrusted by the community to relay service delivery complaints to the municipality, which are plenty.

Asked about the upcoming election, Nel says: “Yes, I need to vote to make a difference in our community.” Nel is one of 45,542 registered voters in Knysna who will cast their ballots on 29 May.

In the 2019 elections, the Democratic Alliance (DA) won the majority of votes with 12,825, compared to the African National Congress (ANC) with 9,998. Other parties failed to receive more than 1,000 votes.

Of her feelings about the state of the country, Nel says: “I feel very disappointed – my children don’t work.”

She relays the experience of two adult sons and two grandsons who are unemployed. “There isn’t any work for them; they throw their CVs in, they put their names on databases but there’s no work for them.”

In 2022, the unemployment rate in Knysna stood at 24.3%.

The unemployment rate hits at home and at Nel’s soup kitchen, with recipients mainly jobless and hungry. While her resources to supply food are getting smaller, Nel says the need is getting bigger.

Read more in Daily Maverick: 2024 elections

“People come everyday and ask, ‘Auntie Tina, is there nothing to eat?’,” she says.

Poverty, Nel says, is a major issue for the people coming to her soup kitchen. “The people are poor,” she says.

In 2022, 63.1% of Knysna’s population lived below the upper-bound poverty line, which was set at R1,227 per person per month, according to the provincial government’s 2022 Socio-Economic Profile of Knysna.

Knysna Knysna resident Tina Nel speaks about the issues in her community: hunger, poverty and unemployment. But she still has hope for the country and believes leaders should take action to improve people’s lives. (Photo: Suné Payne)

The conversation turns to a 75-year-old woman Nel recently helped when stormwater flooded her home. Nel says the woman questioned why she should vote. “If the ANC, the DA had the country, and they did nothing, so I’m going to vote for nobody, because up until now, the parties have done nothing for me.”

***

Up the road in Nekkies, children, chickens, dogs and even pigs share the narrow, winding roads. Loud music from taxis fills the air. People peep out at or wave to Daily Maverick from their gates or the roadside.

There are homes everywhere in Nekkies: from brick homes to wooden structures down a valley and up on the slopes. Occasionally, the royal blue of portable toilets shines out from people’s properties.

Nekkies’ resident Whitey Koko stands alongside the road as Daily Maverick speaks to him.

Koko talks at length about life in Knysna: he fears the deterioration of the municipality will lead to an increase in crime. Current crime statistics point to a year-on-year rise in reported contact crimes, increasing steadily over the last reporting period: 1,351 (2020/2021), 1,497 (2021/2022) and 1,521 (2022/2023).

Koko says policing alone will not stop it. “We as the people in the informal settlements should have discussions with the people in town to find common ground.”

Knysna Knysna resident Whitey Koko speaks to Daily Maverick about his concerns: a rising crime rate and a lack of trust between the community and councillors. (Photo: Suné Payne)

Koko goes further, adding: “We need people from Knysna to make decisions for Knysna, and we can only achieve that through unity, but white people are not interested in talking to us.”

The 21-seat council recently came under fire in a provincial government diagnostic assessment report that highlighted a break in relations between councillors and residents.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Five key takeaways from the Knysna service delivery diagnostic report

Koko says most community members have even stopped attending community meetings because they do not feel the councillors in the council represent them anymore.

“Our inputs are not taken into consideration,” he says. “There is not a single mandate they got from us and entertained by the municipal council. National leaders who know nothing about Knysna come and take decisions on our behalf. What is the point of attending meetings then?”

Others share Koko’s comments about the councillors’ mandate.

Long-time activist and co-founder of Knysna United, Reverend Ralph Stander, says party politics is at the heart of council affairs and local representatives receive their mandate from outside Knysna.

Political party posters in the Knysna suburb of Hornlee. (Photo: Suné Payne)

“You have two Patriotic Alliance [PA] councillors; they don’t have a say in what’s happening there. [Party president] Gayton McKenzie will tell them what to do and the same goes for the other parties … You have the EFF, they will also get their instruction from way up there … The ANC, you have people from George and the DA from Cape Town telling the councillors what to do and what not to do,” he says.

Stander, a former ANC politician, has now left politics and focuses rather on community development and his flourishing building supplies business. He says that rather than calls for the council to be placed under administration, the council should be dissolved, with fresh elections called for new councillors who will get their mandate from Knysna residents.

Placing the council under administration, he argues, is “not going to solve any problems” as the provincial government – led by the DA – will appoint the administrator.

“That administrator will just do whatever the boss, which is the provincial government, tells that person to do. So, that is also not the solution,” he says.

Asked about his predictions for the upcoming elections, Stander says he would prefer it if the DA and the ANC worked together “to hold each other accountable”.

Knysna Knysna resident Ralph Stander speaks during a visit to Hornlee. He says in the council decisions are being made outside of town, while not considering the needs of Knysna residents. (Photo: Suné Payne)

***

Someone who has a unique understanding of Knysna’s problems is Mark Willemse, who has been a regular feature on the political scene. Since 2015, he has been a local councillor, deputy mayor, mayor and now, opposition councillor. Daily Maverick first met him in 2020 when he ran for a vacant ward seat.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Knysna candidates square up for key tussle

Now, he sits in a cafe in the centre of town. He is a proportional councillor for a party called the Knysna Independent Movement, a party that he says is focused on acting as “gatekeepers” in council to ensure corruption is rooted out and every municipal cent is directed towards service delivery.

After 2021, he was elected as deputy mayor and his party formed part of a coalition with his former home, the DA. But by 2022, he was booted out of office along with the DA, in favour of a coalition between the ANC, PA and local party, Plaaslike Besorgde Inwoners (PBI).

“I don’t have any skin in the game in the national elections so I’m here for Knysna,” says Willemse, adding: “I’ve been approached by many parties to join. I did consider it but I decided, my core issue is Knysna.”

Knysna councillor Mark Willemse speaks to Daily Maverick about his experiences in the municipality as a former mayor, deputy mayor and now opposition councillor. (Photo: Suné Payne)

Expanding on some of the issues within Knysna, Willemse points to a historic lack of infrastructure such as water and dams and a lack of future planning, which was then aggravated by the devastating 2017 fires. This has been compounded by a political crisis that Willemse describes as “volatile”.

“The DA is using their strength in the province to lambast the current coalition and rightly so. Because the current coalition is very arrogant in their approach, where they think they can do almost anything means we have these multiple court cases ongoing about political appointments or bad appointments – and that’s money wasted where could be better spent on delivery issues.”

This, he says, is causing “a lot of grief among the ratepayers, the arrogance on the one side is demeaning to the ratepayers”.

“The PA, the ANC, the EFF and then the one smaller party PBI – they’ve taken on this role of leadership, but [are] really not doing it any justice, and Knysna is suffering because of it. They want to be seen to be doing things, but they are not doing things right,” Willemse says.

On the other hand, Willemse argues the DA is “not helping in fostering a better environment to be conducive to community building because they are using strong-arm [tactics].

“We shouldn’t be in this situation, there is a saying that when two elephants fight, the grass suffers … Knysna is the grass,” he adds

***

Despite all the goings-on in her municipality and in the country, Nel remains hopeful about the country’s future. “I hope the president that takes over sees the change he makes in communities because really, we need a change,” she says.

Her message to all politicians – whether at local or national level? “Come and see how the communities look. But don’t just come and look, do something for our people,” she says. DM

Daily Maverick’s Election 2024 coverage is supported, in part, with funding from the Friedrich Naumann Foundation and vehicles supplied by Ford.

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