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COSATU Submission on theGreen Paper on Development and PlanningPresented to the Department of Land Affairs, 13 October 1999 |
Table of Contents
COSATU appreciates the opportunity to make a submission on the Green Paper on Development and Planning (hereafter the ‘Green Paper’). We are grateful to the Department of Land Affairs for granting us the extension. The constituency we represent has a direct stake in spatial development as it is daily confronted by the legacy of grotesque apartheid planning. The majority of our members spend a substantial portion of their time travelling to and from work. The negative effects on family life and productivity arising from these costs are obvious.
Apartheid geography also affect workers’ incomes as a greater proportion of their income is spent on transport. These transports costs arises from living far from the workplace and an inefficient to non-existent public transport system, which worsens the costs faced by workers. Transport costs are an impediment for work seekers to find employment since they live far from work opportunities. The provision of housing far away from work opportunities adds to the costs faced by workers.
Further, some of our members, organised under the umbrella of the South African Municipal Workers Union (SAMWU) are charged with the responsibility of implementing decisions of the municipalities and to provide municipal services to their communities.
COSATU, therefore has a keen interest in overcoming apartheid geography through among others ensuring people live closer to their workplaces and developing an efficient transport system; the transformation of local government to create integrated communities, and so forth.
We commend the National Development and Planning Commission for developing this Green Paper. The Green Paper provides an opportunity to reassess the implementation of the planning system introduced post-1994 in order to close the gaps and consolidate areas of strengths. This submission is not a comprehensive comment on the Green Paper but focuses on the following areas:
- the impact of macroeconomic policy on development and planning; and
- the proposed spatial planning system for South Africa.
The magnitude of the developmental challenge confronting South Africa is recorded elsewhere including in the Green Paper. It is however important to note some of the key challenges. First, and we concur with the Green Paper in this respect, apartheid planning was chiefly motivated by racial segregation and a tighter system of central control to realise this objective. It was therefore not based on sound or rational planning and development needs facing the country. Consequently, apartheid bequeathed a fragmented legislative and planning framework and skewed settlement patterns. The conclusion arrived at by the Commission regarding settlement patterns is wholly supported.1
A central feature of apartheid separate development was an attempt to contain black urbanisation. Failure to fully prevent massive urbanisation led to the accommodation of an ‘insider group’ of Africans largely in townships whose function was a reservoir of cheap labour. Once the Group Areas Act and Influx control were removed, there was a flood of migrants from rural to urban areas. This further strains the available resources and the proliferation of informal settlement.
The de-population of rural areas is aided by lack of economic opportunities in those areas, which is a function of separate development and uneven regional development. On the other hand, the provision of services has not kept pace with the rapid urbanisation process. The population growth rate far outstrips available economic resources. As a result, the democratic government has to provide services to more people than was the case under apartheid. This require a development framework that in the words of the RDP "links development and growth" in a mutually reinforcing fashion.
Secondly, linked to the above, is the massive infrastructure and service delivery backlogs or the social deficit South Africa currently faces. Over the last five years government took important strides to roll out services to historically under-served communities. This has not been sufficient to reverse the backlog and there is a need to accelerate service delivery to a scale envisaged in the RDP. In addition, the sustainability of these services is also important.
Thirdly, a set of challenges have arisen from the implementation of the new development framework introduced post-1994. These are clearly summarised in the Green Paper.2
Overall, South Africa faces the challenge not of only of optimally utilising current infrastructure but equally of providing new infrastructure in such a way that it overcomes apartheid geography and leads to sustainable and integrated development. The benchmark to gauge the development and planning policy framework is the extent to which it has a direct impact in overcoming the apartheid legacy and mobilises sufficient political buy-in from stakeholders and those responsible for its implementation. We shall not countenance the continuation of old practices paraded as new or the status quo remaining intact in spite of new policy frameworks.
Macroeconomic policy can either aid or retard development to the extent that it maximises or constrains resources available to implement programmes. GEAR’s privileging of fiscal rectitude among others, has produced a perverse planning paradigm. Developmental objectives threaten to be supplanted by the subsidiary objective of reducing the government deficit. The level of the deficit is arbitrary and is not informed by South Africa’s development needs. This means that the budget drives plans rather than the other way round. Development plans have to fit within the deficit reduction programme rather than plans driving the budget.3
Gear’s formula comprises rigid deficit to GDP ratios; fixed expenditure to GDP and revenue to GDP targets. All these targets have been missed and government was compelled to revise-upwardly the deficit target for this fiscal year. This formula creates uncertainty and unpredictability for service delivery. In the context of sluggish economic growth performance and rigid adherence to targets, this translates into budget cuts.
Fiscal flows to municipalities have progressively declined over the years. Municipalities therefore are forced to rely on their resources to address service delivery backlogs. Most municipalities lack the financial capacity to address these backlogs. The combination of declining fiscal flows to municipalities and lack of financial capacity results in programmes being cut or the search for alternative service delivery mechanisms, mainly in the form of partnerships with the private sector.
The service levels recommended in the Municipal Infrastructure Investment Framework (MIIF) are largely the products of fiscal stringency. The MIIF mainly focuses on linking service provision to what the state and communities can afford. The result is that the poor will be provided with low quality services. As stated in our Submission on the Discussion Document on Local Government the MIIF approach ignores the environment and health costs that will accrue from low quality services being provided to the poor.4
Further, affordability concerns often mean the poor are provided housing in cheap land, far away from services and employment opportunities. This fuels urban sprawl and deviates from the objective to create integrated communities in a way that brings people closer to where they work. The knock-on effect of this approach is to further exacerbate spatial fragmentation.
Having said this, we are disappointed with the Green Paper’s failure to deal with macroeconomic issues in a focused way. Passing reference is made to the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and the Green Paper’s approach is to take it as a given rather than engage with the issue. As alluded to, macroeconomic policy has a direct impact on spatial planning and it is important that the policy framework substantially evaluate the impact of economic policy on development and planning.
By treating macroeconomic policy as a fait accompli, the Green Paper misses the opportunity to reassert a holistic approach that realigns macroeconomic policy to developmental needs. COSATU does not support the perception of macroeconomic policy as an "untouchable" holy cow to which everything must be subjected. Where macroeconomic policy constrains development we must propose that it be adjusted accordingly. Without adequate resources, the vision of the Green Paper will remain a pipe dream which is largely unenforceable. In addition, this will provide an incentive to fall back on the traditional modes of doing development, which detracts from the transformation envisaged in the Green Paper.
Recommendation:
- The White Paper should have a section dedicated to a discussion of the macroeconomic policy and its impact on development and planning, including spatial planning. It should also propose areas for adjustment to ensure that economic policy reinforces development and planning policy framework.
The Commission recommends that the current three-sphere spatial planning system should be continued; the Development Facilitation Act (DFA) should be retained, albeit in a modified form; and assignation of appropriate roles and functions between spheres of government. Local government will be the locus of spatial planning or in the terms of the Commission, it will be the cutting edge of the spatial planning system. A central unit at national level should be tasked with cross and inter-departmental planning and co-ordination, according to the Commission. Additionally, terminological standardisation is proposed in order to develop a common conceptual framework on spatial planning
Further, to achieve these goals the Commission believes in an ‘incremental’ and ‘minimalist’ approach. An incremental approach is premised on the belief that a "period of consolidation and the incremental alignment of different parts of the planning system to achieve synergy" is required. According to the Green Paper a ‘minimalist’ approach is premised on three motives. Firstly, it recognises that spatial plans should not attempt to be comprehensive but should take the form of frameworks of public actions and investment or. Secondly, the form of the plan will vary from circumstances to circumstances. Thirdly, it emphasises the importance of prioritisation (Green Paper, p.37). COSATU has no fundamental problems with the proposed spatial planning system for South Africa. We are concerned with its practical implications.
First, ‘incrementalism’ and ‘minimalism’ as proposed in the Green Paper should not translate in the reluctance of national government to intervene at provincial and local government level. Intervention by national government can be manifold but at least include intervention to ensure compliance with legal framework and intervention in the form of support or capacity building. Support can take the form of devolving adequate resources to enable provinces and local governments to fulfill their developmental mandate.
Intervention should not be construed as inimical to co-operative governance. It is a critical ingredient to ensure that the system functions well, particularly to ensure national integrity and economic unity. The argument for intervention is further premised on our legacy. Some local governments either lack capacity or political willingness to implement the transformation ideals envisaged in the Green Paper and other policy frameworks. For instance, the Commission found that the DFA principles have not yet had a major impact on the planning products which have emerged since 1994 (Green Paper, p.35). In this respect, the Commission’s recommendation that a process of formal plan approval by national and provincial government is of vital importance.
Secondly, and linked with the above, the principles of the DFA must be enforced and strictly adhered to. In particular, no plans should be approved if they promote urban sprawl. In this respect the emphasis in the Green Paper that "the current distorted settlement pattern will not correct itself automatically, nor will be addressed by default" (Green Paper, p.31) is more reason for stronger monitoring and intervention. As noted in the Green Paper, the DFA principles represent an "outright rejection of the low density, sprawling, fragmented and largely monofunctional forms of development. They call for more compact, integrated and mixed-use settlement forms" (Green Paper, p.34).
More emphasis should be placed on provincial spatial planning and infrastructure provision. The emerging one-sided emphasis on Spatial Development Initiatives and current transport nodes as the key determinants of spatial development needs interrogation. We move from the premise that in order to overcome apartheid geography new infrastructure must be provided and in addition the poor must be located on well-located land. As President Mbeki stated in his address when opening parliament that whenever a school is build there must be a road to the school, telephone lines must be provided; electricity should be supplied, and so forth.
The SDI has a particular function and purpose, to harness regional nodes within a province or across the provinces. They do not therefore constitute a framework for province-wide spatial development, although they have a direct impact on such spatial frameworks. However, the SDI’s are useful as they provide a conceptual framework for clustering a range of services in an integrated fashion.
In addition, a narrow emphasis on using current transport nodes accepts the apartheid logic that drove these nodal points of development. Therefore the approach does not necessarily lead to overcoming the apartheid space but work within its terms.
Thirdly, integrated development planning is an activity that should also occur at national level. Integrated development planning is an innovative concept to holistically align sectoral development plans in a way that maximise their collective impact. It is also an important instrument to measure the impact of development programmes on key development indicators such as eradication of poverty, spatial dislocation, and so forth. It creates a comprehensive and mutually reinforcing planning approach.5
Consideration should be given to possible legal and institutional mechanisms to ensure that integrated development planning does take place at national level. Currently, apart from sectoral legislation and the DFA, there is no legal instrument to ensure integrated development planning at national level. On practical grounds the Commission while preferring a single piece of legislation, which incorporates spatial planning, the environment and transportation (Green Paper, p.41.), does not recommend this route in the immediate future. In principle, however, the Commission believes that "all spheres of government should engage in development planning conducted in an integrate way" (p.33).
The Municipal System Bill will be the legal instrument to ensure that municipalities develop integrated development plans. Notwithstanding the Commission’s misgivings, the idea of a single piece of legislation should not be totally jettisoned. A period of review is therefore essential at the end of which the value of a single law should be assessed.
The Co-ordination and Implementation Unit (CIU) in the office of the President is an embryonic institutional mechanism to co-ordinate cross-sectoral and inter-department planning at national level. This should be complemented by a clear system of inter-governmental relationships within the wider co-operative governance system. In the interim, structures such as MINMEC and the Budget Forum should be fully utilised as a mechanism for inter-governmental co-ordination.
Fourthly, national and provincial legislatures have an important oversight function over the executive. The legislature therefore has an instrumental role in development and planning. The Green Paper falls short of providing an analysis of how the legislature can contribute into the overhaul and implementation of the spatial planning system. It is not adequate to find a ‘departmental’ home for spatial planning. This must be supplemented by the assignation of clear roles and functions for the legislatures.
Recommendations:
A system of national and provincial supervision and intervention should be spelled out in the White Paper. The proposed system in the Municipal Systems Bill could be used as a basis to develop a blueprint for intervention within the overall co-operative governance system. This should also include a clear role for legislatures both national and provincial. In this respect the White Paper should elaborate on the role of the legislatures in the proposed spatial planning system;
The DFA principle should be enforced and plans that promote urban sprawl should not be approved. In addition, a system of incentives and sanctions should be investigated to encourage all spheres of government to follow these principles. The manual developed by the Commission is also pertinent in this respect;6
Timeframes should be set for provinces to pass subsidiary legislation within national frameworks. The Minister of Land should use moral suasion and other forms of persuasion to realise this objective. It is a serious indictment that since the promulgation of the DFA not all provinces have passed legislation to give effect to the DFA principles.
The White Paper should provide a sketch or prototype of what a modified DFA would look like.
Clear timeframes should be set to review the whole system and consider the introduction of a single legislation should be considered.
The Green Paper on Development and Planning is a welcome intervention to re-evaluate spatial development in South Africa. It provides useful insight on the experience of the last four years, with particular focus on the DFA. It is also important as it provides a framework for reinforcing the system and in some respect rethinking how the system should operate. COSATU support the effort to re-think and re-evaluate spatial development. This submission is not a comprehensive comment on the Green Paper but underscores some key concerns, some relate to practical implications of the proposed system and some of a policy nature, specifically macro-economic policy.
We have advanced recommendation, which we hope will address concerns raised in the submission and at the same time add more value to the Green Paper and subsequently in the White Paper. We looking forward in anticipation to the White Paper which we would also like to engage with.
Footnotes:
The Green Paper states that "the physical consequence…are settlement patterns in both urban and rural areas that are often grotesquely distorted. Spatial environments are inconvenient and dysfunctional for the majority of citizens as they generate enormous amounts of movement with great costs in terms of time, money, energy and pollution. Settlement patterns make the provision of efficient and viable public transportation almost impossible, making servicing costly to the public fiscus, and constraining affordability", p.19.
In terms of the Green Paper:
"The spatial planning system in South Africa is currently under severe strain. Some of the problems may be ascribed to teething problems associated with political transition and the establishment of a new political dispensation and developmental direction. Others are structural:
- There is no strong, relatively standardised planning system in place which is clear but flexible enough to allow for local variation;
- Large parts of settlements are largely unaffected in any positive way by the benefits of a spatial planning system. In particular they receive little or no protection from the law in land-related matters;
- A reinforcing system of co-operative governance between spheres of government is essential for effectiveness, but operationally this is not yet in places;
- The legislative and procedural framework of planning is extremely complex;
- There are severe problems of capacity among officials and decision-makers in all spheres of government;
- Land development approval procedures are excessively slow and cumbersome, to the extent that the economies of land development is being compromised and the private-sector development community is losing faith and patience with the system. In particular, there is no single simple route for land related applications" (p.30).
This does not constitute a comprehensive critique of GEAR. For our overall critique of Gear "From RDP to Gear: The Gradual Embracing of Neo-liberalism in Economic Policy", which can be found on the web site of the National Institute for Economic Policy (NIEP).
This submission is available on our home page, the address is http://www.cosatu.org.za/docs/lgdp.htm
According to the Green Paper "integrated development planning has a number of dimensions. The term 'integrated' implies that it pulls together social, economic, environmental, spatial, cultural and political concerns into a single set of processes, in which the relationship between these concerns is considered. The terms 'integrated' also implies the integration of implementation and directional issues and the alignment on internal corporate management issues with external influences. The term 'development' is holistic" (Green Paper, p.33).
This is a manual produced by the Commission to assist and guide provinces and local government to interpret and apply the DFA principles.
