The system of town and village councils set up by the government to administer the African townships outside the bantustans came under concerted attack during the second half of 1984. The rejection of the councils by the majority of township residents had already been demonstrated in the widespread boycott of council elections in November 1983. The unrest in the Pretoria-Witwatersrand-Vereeniging area in September and October left seven councillors dead and only four out of the 22 councils in the area functioning by mid-November.
The protests began when a number of councils announced increases in rents and in charges for such essential services as water and electricity. In the ensuing demonstrations the homes and businesses of many councillors were stoned and petrol-bombed. Most councillors on the East Rand were reported to be in hiding in mid-September.
On 14 October more than 2,000 residents of Sebokeng and Evaton called on the Lekoa and Evaton councils to resign, at a meeting called by the Vaal Black Ministers' Solidarity Group, the Vaal Civic Association, the Vaal Youth Congress and the Congress of South African Students. They resolved not to pay rents in Sebokeng or permit fees in Evaton (previously a freehold area) until the councils met their demands, which included the reduction of rents by the Lekoa town council and the scrapping of permit fees in Evaton. Two weeks later police with loud hailers warned residents in the Vaal area that if they did not pay their rents, water and electricity supplies would be cut off. Residents of Boipatong and Bophelong townships had their electricity and water cut off over the last week in October.
However, by November it was reported that the increases had been suspended in most townships in the area. Rent rises were suspended by 11 councils by mid-September, including the councils for Lekoa, Daveyton and Atteridgeville, while in Soweto an electricity levy was suspended. Councillors in Tsakane resolved to suspend proposed rent increases indefinitely, saying that their lives were at stake.
Calls for the resignation of all councillors and a halt to rent increases were among the demands of the stay-away on 5 and 6 November, in which an estimated 90 per cent of workers in the Vaal area and on the East Rand participated. A number of councillors had already resigned in townships throughout the area in previous weeks. On 9 November 11 councillors resigned in 'fear and disillusion' — eight from Duduza and three from Tembisa.
Two days later elections for a new council in Ratanda, near Heidelberg, were postponed indefinitely when candidates failed to stand for nomination. The entire Ratanda council had resigned in August following pressure from constituents.
Members of the East Rand Urban Councillors' Association (ERUCA) met in October with the Minister of Co-operation and Development, seeking government funds to reduce their financial dependence on rents and service charges. In September the chairman of ERUCA and of Daveyton Town Council, Tom Boya, had issued a statement saying that councillors had allowed themselves to be used by the government to institute rent increases and that the government did not have the welfare of councillors at heart.
The government responded to the unrest during these months by holding meetings with councillors and taking the various forms of repressive action described elsewhere in this issue. At the end of October it was announced that African councils were to be provided with their own law enforcement officers. The government also announced its recognition of the Urban Councils' Association of South Africa as an official forum for communication between itself and African councils, while giving assurances that the financing of councils would be discussed in the next session of parliament.
