The Credible Alternative 1st Movement (CA1st): Ushering in a new era of credibility and accountability in the City of Cape Town
The Credible Alternative 1st Movement (CA1st) is ready to usher in a new era of credibility and accountability in the City of Cape Town. As an extension of the civil-society organisation, SA First Forum, we are all set to fight corruption and crime, tackle housing and transport issues, ensure seamless delivery of services, reduce water and electricity tariffs, uplift citizens through entrepreneurship, and encourage community wellness through participation in sport, arts and culture.
Corruption and accountability
CA1st will demonstrate through actions – not just words – what it is to put the interests of taxpayers and voters first. We are committed to stamping out corruption and unaccountable leaders who put their party and themselves first. People are fed up with establishment political parties. Our candidates are not career politicians. CA1st candidates have careers in various fields and are running for office to help restore the dignity of the people in their communities. Capetonians deserve better and their interests must be put first. We will recall any of our councillors, should they be found guilty of corruption, abuse of authority or are simply inefficient.
Service delivery
Our main focus will be on giving the poor and middle class more equitable services. For CA1st, it’s really all about lessening the burden on them. We will cut surcharges on basic services like water and electricity by at least 50%. This has to be done because these services must not be delivered to make profit.
Community upliftment through entrepreneurship
A huge part of a life with dignity, is the ability to earn an income. As we move to make the City of Cape Town more humane and caring, with a can-do attitude from the top office, there will be a huge focus on ensuring that the entrepreneurial efforts of the people of our city are able to flourish. We will make it easier for people to start and operate a small business, as well as trade informally to earn a living, as entrepreneurs.
Crime
Ensuring the safety of our citizens is a high on the CA1st agenda. The safety of our most vulnerable citizens, children, women, the elderly, and the LBGTQ community, will receive particular attention. We will introduce more practical programs to address some of the root causes of crime in Cape Town, and move away from the “Kragdadige” approach used by the City of Cape Town.
Housing and developments
We will adopt a different approach to dealing with the housing and spatial planning dilemma in the city. Decent, affordable housing is a right for everyone – not a privilege. This is the departure point for CA1st, as we take our “people first” activism from the streets to the City of Cape Town’s Chambers. For us, the provision of housing is much more than just putting a roof over someone’s head. It’s about ensuring that they are able to live in an environment in which they are able to be safe and thrive. CA1st commits itself to unlocking the bottlenecks that prevent housing delivery for all. We will also not be in support of the River Club development and will not oppose the court case against the city.
Transport
With the transport system in Cape Town in crisis, city commuters are all too often left frustrated. We will prioritise integrated, affordable and reliable public transport systems that reach all corners of the city. As a party of inclusivity, we will devote every effort to integrate taxis into this transport system. They are not our enemies. We will also make sure that the My Citi Bus Service reaches all areas and will work towards introducing a Light rail transit system (LRT) – something a previous transport MEC wanted to introduce.
Sport, arts and culture
Sport, arts and culture has an important role to play within our communities. CA1st will introduce various programs to harness the influence it has in community life. Children must play and have fun, and everyone should have the opportunity to express their artistic talents.
Environment
CA1at understands the importance of safeguarding our natural environment. We strongly believe that the quality of our water, air and soil must be prioritised by the City of Cape Town. We have a list of practical initiatives that we will put in place to protect and enhance the environment and ensure that Capetonians live in a cleaner city, in all respects.
Transform the way we do business
Our mission is to serve the people of the City of Cape Town whole-heartedly. With approachability and accessibility being characteristics of the party, we will listen better, work with our constituents and fight less with national government and civil society. CA1st will focus on what we can do to improve people’s lives and enable them to live in peace and harmony, instead of making their lives difficult.
“Interfaith relationships strengthen us” – Advocate Rod Solomons
Interfaith dialogue fosters respect for diversity and co-operative interchange between people of different religious beliefs. It helps us understand each other and build bridges over our differences so that we can try to live together in peace, to the best of our ability. Interfaith dialogue plays a huge role in the awareness we have of each other’s needs, preferences and spirituality and thus the fear of the unknown and ignorance are dissolvable. Cape Town’s tapestry is crafted from the mosaic of its cultural and religious differences, woven into one.
Remarkable and historically important deeds have been done by people of all faiths in South Africa. In Cape Town, we have seen how people of different faiths stood together and assisted each other during slavery, during apartheid and in fighting for our democratic rights. The Credible alternative 1st Movement (CA1st) says that now is the not the time to let go of something so valuable. In fact, we should develop and broaden our understanding of each other and do all we can to build on the foundations that were built before all of us were born. Not only should we strengthen these existing ties, but we should encourage, and actively learn about faiths that are not familiar to us at all.
According to Adv. Rod Solomons, CA1st’s mayoral candidate “it is disquieting to learn that the outgoing Mayor of Cape Town created a ‘Religious Leaders Task Team’ (RLTT) that is not representative of the broad interfaith community in Cape Town. We cannot support a City-appointed entity that doesn’t, and won’t attempt to represent all faiths. This is illogical and potentially harmful to interfaith connections in Cape Town.”
The Ca1st supports the Parliament of the World’s Religions’ overall theme for the year, “Opening our hearts to the world: Compassion in action” because it resonates with our vision of Cape Town becoming a ‘Humane, Caring, Can-Do and Entrepreneurial city’. We fully support Rev. Berry Behr the chairperson of the Cape town INTERFAITH Initiative who hosted this dialogue and said they are working hard to find “our own solutions to the challenges of today, and we find these answers in the everyday heroes who are working tirelessly for the greater good”
“If I am elected Mayor, I will recognise and support the Cape Town Interfaith Initiative because it encompasses all faith communities. It’s shocking to see the outgoing mayor of Cape Town terminate the City’s relationship with such initiatives,” says Solomons.
CA1st’s Manifesto clearly states, “We want, in word and deed, to be respectful of different perspectives and to engage in respectful dialogue. We seek and gain understanding and resolution of difference, not a deepening of divisions”.
Issued by: Zahra Ismail, CA1st Media Liaison Officer
The CA1st will make it easier for sport and cultural bodies to use underutilized spaces owned by the City of Cape Town for recreational and cultural endeavour.
We wish for Cape Town to be a vibrant cultural city where the City of Cape Town facilitates the unleashing of the unique creative talents & endeavours of those in the arts and culture sphere. We wish for cultural activities to take a central stage in community life and the benefit of partaking in arts & culture to be fully harnessed for the benefit of us all. When visitors think of Cape Town they must say, “wow those people have talent & it’s a vibrant melting pot of cultural expression”. The City of Cape Town must play a facilitating & harnessing role but in a less bureaucratic way in order to unleash the contribution of the arts to human well-being, social transformation and economic growth of Cape Town.
As President Mandela said “Sport has the power to inspire. It has the power to unite people in a way that little else does. It speaks to youth in a language they understand. Sport can create hope where once there was only despair” Hence as CA1st we recognise the integral role that Sport and the Arts and Culture has played in community life and wish to harness it better.
Time and time again our communities have produced highly talented sports people from successful run community-based sport clubs. Through these clubs, sport has played a critical role in addressing social challenges in communities. The closing down of the Department of Sport and Recreation by the City of Cape Town was a cardinal error made by politicians and officials who do not understand the role and value of sports clubs in communities. We will re- instate this department to play an enabling role and ensure that community-based sport rises to its former glory.
Watch the conversation between Adv. Rod Solomons and Dr. Vanessa Farr about the current situation concerning environmental issues in Cape Town. Ca1st’s position in respect of the Environment and Sustainable living is elaborated on.
We understand the importance of safeguarding our open spaces and natural environment. We believe strongly that the quality of our water, air and soil must be prioritised by the City of Cape Town.
Failing infrastructure and the and totally inadequate spatial planning when it comes to the provision of housing resulting in overcrowding has led to the current rampant pollution of our environment.
Poor sewage infrastructure maintenance has led to unacceptably high ecoli-levels found in our vlei’s, wetlands and beaches.
The CA1st is fully aware that misuse and poisoning of agricultural land creates food scarcity and ill-health. We are totally opposed to the appeasement of developers who put our aquifers under threat for financial gain.
Many parts of Cape Town are unbelievably dirty and filthy. We are firmly of the view that a City Administration must provide equitable cleaning services with a bias towards poorer areas where dirt and filth is a perennial problem.
Adv. Rod Solomons elaborates on the manifesto topic relating to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.
We acknowledge that there are many dimensions of diversity within Cape Town.
While equality in South Africa is entrenched in our constitution it alone does not make all South Africans equal. Our history of colonialism, slavery, imperialism and apartheid, has contrived together to make South Africa a very unequal society. The legacy of our unequal and racist past is present in the structural inequalities of our everyday lives, and the continued disenfranchisement of the poor, and the ongoing destabilisation of the middle class, particularly Cape Town.
Our current history is one in which governments have served the interests of certain individuals over the interests of their country, and have used the benefit of having seats in parliament and councils to advance their own interests over the interests of the people of this country and their constitution, which has resulted in contrived outcomes that continues to keep South Africa as very unequal society.
The CA1st, like the South African Human Rights Commission, is concerned with the eradication of inequality and unfair discrimination, particularly based on race, gender, sex, disability, and sexual orientation, and our communication, decisions and actions are guided by this understanding of equality, as an aspiration that we must work towards. We believe that equality can only be achieved through commitment to equity in policymaking that will result in re-defining the City’s mandate, and in how that mandate is executed.
Equity is about accepting the principle that all Capetonians, regardless of their varied dimensions of difference should be able to access opportunities for them to realise their full potential as individuals and communities. A commitment to equity in local government is recognition that people who are economically, politically and historically disenfranchised do not have the same access to opportunity as people who are/were not.
A commitment to equity is about giving individuals and communities a hand-up to achieve equality. The CA1st is committed to equity in thought, word and deed in local government. Inclusion is about doing all that we can to ensure that all dimensions of diversity can participate in defining what it means to have a city that works for all. Inclusion in local government is about making sure that the people of Cape Town have a say in what the city should be doing for them today, and in the future.
Besides dealing with diversity through equity and inclusion, it also makes economic sense to create the conditions for all citizens to reach their full potential, because the growth and development of the City will benefit from citizens that function at their full potential.
