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Mayor with an open-door policy"You can be what you want to be. No matter where you come from, you can overcome almost any difficulty if you look to the future and not the past.”
Dan Plato, the new mayor of Cape Town, presents himself as a leader concerned with results and delivery, rather than politicking and propaganda. He maintains that his inspiration has always been, and will always remain, the welfare of the people.
In this insistence, one senses a firm decision to attempt a transcendence of personality politics towards a higher plane of service delivery and political success.
Indeed, this single-minded concern for performance may be the greatest contributor to the fact that so many citizens are yet to become familiar with him.
Stepping into the limelight in the position made vacant by Helen Zille, Plato has not gone on a publicity drive. Instead, he has focused on the daily grind of his job.
There seems to be something of a pragmatic approach, non-ideological in its nature, which permeates not only Plato’s approach to his job but the drive within his personality for success.
Plato clearly wants his actions to decide his legacy, as well as his public persona.
Having previously described his predecessor as “simply the best”, Plato intends on carving a role for himself as the man who simply delivered on the promises of local government. One even senses a reticence to dwell on issues of personality.
But this may be the very ingredient required within South African circles of power – an obsession with results at the expense of personal charisma. And so, Plato is content to dwell on the issues of policy.
He has identified four issues that require the urgent attention of the mayor’s office – service delivery, housing, employment and security.
And Plato says that headway is being made. “I have only recently been in office, just over a hundred days, but yes, I would say we are making headway, concentrating on all these issues at different levels. I personally am involved in driving many of these mentioned; this has always been the passion for me and not the paycheck at the end of the month.”
He has, however, identified housing as the gravest crisis currently facing Cape Town, pointing to the fact that more land is required, as well as open communication between the government and communities. But, according to Plato, even that will not be enough.
“People want houses. But at the current rate of delivery, we will never be able to house the
400 000 people in the city who need better housing, not even in the next 15 years – we don’t even have the land to house that many people on a single plot.”
And so the mayor maintains that the time has come to think “outside of the box” and turn to a fresh approach – specifically in the development of multistorey government housing.
“After some research, and seeing how multistorey structures work well in other countries, I thought, why not here?
“Look at what’s happening in the rest of the world: Brazil, Mexico, China, Singapore and the western countries are all using the multi-storey approach,” he says.
“I spoke about densification several times during my tenure as Mayoral Committee Member for Housing, and now it seems that we are taking heed of this and are currently busy doing what is necessary to see how we can act speedily so as to ensure the absolute best we can offer our people and be able to deliver and decrease the housing waiting list.”
The housing issue has not been without controversy – specifically in terms of the land known as the N2 Gateway region, with demonstrations and confrontations becoming more and more frequent.
Plato asserts that, along with a new approach to housing, the hot issue of service delivery can be cooled so long as the communication channels between the government and communities remain open. “A lack of communication with communities is the chief problem. I believe in keeping the public informed. An informed community is a content one.
“I consistently engage with our communities, keeping them updated on progress in attending to their needs in their specific areas and explaining how far in the process implementation thereof is. This assists them in having an understanding of what goes on behind the scenes and the challenges we face beyond our control in delivering and alleviating most of these issues.”
Plato recognises that the incessant urbanisation within South Africa creates many of the service delivery issues facing the government in South Africa, yet he believes that unfortunately there is not much one can do to change the situation. “No matter how we as a nation try to make our people understand the ramifications of urbanisation, we will still sit with the same problem for years ongoing.
“It definitely affects our ability in being able to provide housing as well as service delivery, in that it means constant updating for our planning department, causing even more of a backlog for us in delivering on set time frames. However, this is something we will have to tolerate and consistently make provision for.”
The third pillar of Plato’s policy drive is employment, and it is in this realm that the mayor believes real improvement can be made in the lives of the vulnerable, even in the face of housing and service delivery crises.
Plato speaks of the necessary development of the “second economy”.
“We rely too much on this ‘first economy’ to provide jobs and pay taxes, and they can only do so much. Yes, we need to maintain and extend and create the necessary enabling environment, where business can do business.
“The city does this through its strategy of infrastructure-led development, and that’s what keeps us very busy – fixing the roads and so on. A good economy can only grow if it has the transport systems,” he says.
“But we need to do more to help the ‘second economy’ – the small traders and the informal sector. The second economy needs to kick in, in a dramatic way, to help small and micro-business so they can employ one or two more people.”
In the midst of the urgent needs facing his office, Plato says he remains inspired by the people who require good governance. “Our people inspire me – their hopes, their needs and the fact that they look up to me and expect me to deliver on some of what they aspire for.
This gets me going even more, constantly driving and pushing to do better.”
He cites Nelson Mandela as the person he admires the most in public service. “I had the privilege of meeting him briefly. His lack of anger about the past and his amazing ability to move beyond the past is very powerful and inspiring to me.”
Yet, Plato constantly returns to the same theme – it is the people who inform his political ambitions.
“My dream, for all our people, is their economic empowerment, the ability to sustain themselves and their families and enhance their daily living conditions.”
He maintains that his vocation is largely a response to the need within him “to be out there among our people, assisting them in reaching for their aspirations”.
It is through this prism that he traces his political career.
“I have been involved in political activities since high school, particularly in Ravensmead and the surrounding areas of Cape Town’s Northern suburbs. As a community organiser, I played a major role in rallying people against the former apartheid regime.
“In 1996, I become a councillor and full-time politician. I served two terms as chairperson of the City of Cape Town’s Economic Development, Tourism and Property Management portfolio committee, and from 2006 to 2009 held the Housing portfolio in the Mayoral Committee,” he recalls.
“During this period, as deputy chairperson of the DA Metro Region and DA Caucus in the City of Cape Town, I served as acting executive mayor at various intervals. Before being elected executive mayor in May 2009, I had recently taken over as Mayoral Committee Member responsible for service delivery and economic development.”
Throughout this entire journey, even to this day, it seems that lingering beneath the political and policy rhetoric of Dan Plato there is something of a holy mission driving him incessantly onwards.
It is a layer within his character to which we are not given access. For there remains something unsaid about Plato – and perhaps that is the reason for his relatively low profile.
He maintains, “You can be what you want to be. No matter where you come from, you can overcome almost any difficulty if you look to the future and not the past.”
His fiery optimism is somewhat disarming, coming from a man who faces directly some of South Africa’s deepest and darkest issues daily. He describes his daily routine as “Hectic! Hectic! Hectic!” – one in which he admits it is a struggle to find personal and family time. He lists his preferred reading matter as anything that keeps him informed on what is happening within the city and the country.
This only fuels further fire to the mystery of Dan Plato – student of theology, struggle organiser, intriguingly a former member of the National Party and now currently the mayor of Cape Town, a city constantly in the global spotlight.
Perhaps we are simply not able to, or not allowed, to be privy to the motivations that govern him. He sheds no light on the man behind the office. It is as though there has only ever existed the man who would be mayor.
One gets the impression that this is due to the choice of Plato.
As for his leadership style, Plato emphasises his encouragement of teamwork and the granting of independence to those under his authority.
“My strength lies in the fact that I am known as a people’s person – the mayor with the open-door policy and a great belief in team effort. In this way, I ensure I always have an excellent team on my side, which is just as passionate about making Cape Town one of the top cities to live in. I’m not a micro-manager. All I want from the city’s officials is that they do their jobs to the best of their ability.”
And if Plato and his team live the rhetoric he breathes, Cape Town is set for a mayoral term of office that is realistic, honest and brave in its pursuit of service delivery. ?
Chris Waldburger
