emergency - Computer Science

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The shape of things
Repression is the key to establishing the new Regional Services
Councils - building blocks for a future apartheidsociety.
According to leading SADF
figures, the SADF's new combat
plane, the Cheetah, compares
favourably with the best in the
world in terms of its speed,
weapons systems and
monoeuvrability.
The unveiling of the Cheetah last
week served as a morale booster
for government supporters and
right wingers generally.
At the same time it provided a
sobering insight into how the
government intends to pave the
way forward to the future of peace
and prosperity which government
leaders continue to talk about.
Whilst &e Cheetah may appear to
be invincible, the governments
reform plans do not present a
similar pi*ure of infallibiiity.
Reform, in case you've
forgotten, is the process by which
PW Botha undertook to lead all
South Africans towards a future of
murual goodwill and stability.
Considering the prevailing
circumstances, you might be
forgiven for being under the
'reform'
impression that the
process had fallen by the wayside.
In fact 'reform' continues and
has in many ways picked up in pace
over the course of the past year.
RSC's
One of the key elements of the
govemments reform package is the
proposed creation of Regional
Service Councils (RSCs).
Understanding how the proposed
RSCs fit in with other recent steps
taken by the government, such as
the scrapping of the pass laws, the
disbanding of the regional
Cevelopment boards, the creation
of new Executive Commrrrees as
substitutes for the Provincial
Councils, and the adoption of what
the government describes as a
policy of 'orderly urbanisation', is
essential to understanding the long
term future that the government
envisages for South Africa.
The RSCs are envisaged as multiracial
co-ordinating bodies for the
frnancing and provision of services
in South Africa's metroooiitan
regions.
Each RSC is to be made up of
representatives appointed by the
various racially autonomous local
authorities (municipalities) in the
area for which it is responsible.
The RSCs will be responsible for
hard services' (housing, ftansport,
water, electricity, sewerage), while
local authorities continue to
administer
soft
The scars of the revolt
imposed taxes.
services'(eg.parks ).
Thus for example, an RSC for
the Witwatersrand metropolitan
area, would, as the government
envisages, be composed of
representatives from each of t-he
local ccuncils or municipalities -
black, 'coloured'. Indian and
white, in the area.
Each local authority will be
allowed to nominate one
representative to the RSC for eaclllVo
(or part thereof) of the RSC
provided services which it
consumes.
As a result, from the start,
representation on the RSCs will be
weighted in favour of areas which
consume the highest proportion of
services (ie mainly white areas).
For the RSCs to work,
functioning municipal bodies have
to be in existence. At the moment
'coloureds', Indians and most
blacks do not have autonomous
municipal bodies to represent
them.
Rejected
It is worth noting that existing
local authority structures, other
than in white areas, have been
widely rejected by the communities
whom they are supposed to
represent. In the Eastern Cape, for
example, nearly 70 percent of the
50 black councils are nonfunctional
because they have been
totally rejected by the
communities. At present, onlv
response to local authority
those who are regarded as
collaborators with the apartheid
system have been prepared to
associate themselves with the
councils.
The RSCs will be tunded by a tax
on salaries and a tax on total
turnover both of which are to be
paid by employers,
This 'indirect' approach to
taxation is designed to avoid the
kind of upheavels that resulted
from the resistance of black
communities to direct taxes
imposed on them by the black local
authorities.
Although those taxes will not be
allowed to be deducted from wages
or passed on to prices, this is what
will inevitably happen in the long
run. In the end, black township
dwellers, many of them already
facing the direst poverty, will bear
the brunt of financing the RSCs.
Through the RScs the
government hopes to achieve a
number of objectives.
Uiban revolt
Whilsr in the past it had hoped
that township dwellers would
finance the provision of services in
their own townships, the urban
revolt of the past few years has
shown this approach to be
unworkable.
Through the RSCs the
government intends to provide a
broader base for financing the
development of township services.
The structure and financing of the
RSCs , and in particular their
multi-racial nature, is intended to
ensure at least a slightly improved
source of revenue for financins the
townships.
Thus. while on the one hand the
government continues in its
intention of absolving itself from
responsibility for financing
township growth, on the other
hand it hopes to defuse the
township revolt by involving
township dwellers in these
relatively powerless strucfures and
by making living conditions in the
townships slightly more tolerable.
With the major black political
organisations set firmly against
anything other than unified nonracial
municipalities in a united and
democratic South Africa. it is
unlikely that black Sou& Africans
will see the RSCs as anything other
than yet another apartheid body
imposed on them from above.
Coupled with rhis is the fact that
:here is very little to suggest that
:he RSCs will substantially
;redistribute resources to finance
rrrban development in the black
townships. What redistribution
does occur is iikely to benefit only
small sectors of the black urban
population.
Thus, even before the first RSC
has been established government
plans for third tier government -
the RSCs and the local authorities -
appear to be based on extremely
uncertain ground.
Second tier
Second tier government is also
being subjected to major
rFcfnrahrrino
Evidence is that the existing
provincial structures are to be reorganised
into eight (or nine) new
'developmental regions'. These
new 'provinces' will, it appears,
cross-cut existing provincial and
banrustan boundaries.
ln the past the four provincial
councils have been responsible
primarily for white affairs while
13'development boards' regulated
black urban Iife on the second tier.
Now the white elected provincial
councils and the government
appointed development boards are
being scrapped. In their place State
President PW Botha has appointed
mult-racial executive councils
(Exco's) for each of the provinces.
Transitional
The Excos are responsible only
to the government, It appears that
(continued overleaf)