On Tuesday, when the news broke that Cyril Ramaphosa would not be honouring his electoral promise to devolve control of the railways in the Cape, there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth.

How could the ANC break an electoral promise!? What an unprecedented shock!

Of course, despite his outrage, Hill-Lewis seemed to be aware that he should have seen this coming, as the following exchange on X between him and close advisor of the DA, Gareth van Onselen, illustrated:

GvO: “Understandably disappointing, but I suspect “pushed out” is just a way of saying never. To that end, and perhaps I am wrong, but is there an example, ever, of any significant service/power, the ANC has ever, in 30 years, devolved down to provincial or municipal level?”

GHL: “Not one example I can think of. The difference here is that no lesser structure than the national cabinet has decided that devolution must happen. That was 2 years ago. And then…nothing! We are now in the weird space where cabinet decisions mean nothing.”

This may seem strange - why would the DA trust the ANC to live up to any political promise it made at any point? They have no track record of negotiating in good faith. Even the Constitution itself has been structured to undermine the spirit of the declaration of intent for CODESA.

But such is life, and such is the DA. As it turns out, this isn'the first time they have trusted the ANC. Late last year, at a digital press conference with Alan Winde, I asked him why they hadn't started generating power back when they first took control of the province in 2009. He had a bit of a candid moment, and responded that he tried, but was blocked by the federal executive committee at the time, who insisted they trust the ANC to solve the loadshedding problem.

Why is this trust so forthcoming from them on these matters? It can't be naivite - they are perfectly capable of covering up corruption in their own ranks, and when negotiating with people they really want to crush, like the Cape independence movement, they can be quite nimble and creative.

A couple of years ago, I was contracted by AfriForum to write a report on the extent to which it was possible for the Western Cape Provincial Government to devolve administrative control over its own affairs, with or without the consent of the national government, in eight key areas. This was part of an effort organised by the Cape Independence Advocacy Group, which brought together several major civic organisations with the DA in one room.

Ultimately, the Western Cape Devolution Working Group never used my report, and not a single soul read one page of the 99-page document. But I found it an incredibly instructive exercise. While many of the avenues for increasing provincial control proved to be extremely narrow, in several of them, not least electricity and policing, I found that there were the equivalent of massive stacks of the proverbial $100 bill lying all over the floor, and nobody to pick them up.

Having an ear into the behaviour of the DA behind the scenes was equally educational, since they saw the Working Group as a means of containing separatist tendencies and trying to get ahead of their competition.

The DA relies on the same polling service as the CIAG did to produce that famous graphic showing nearly 2/3rds support for secession, and so they saw the issue as extremely important to address in some way. Of course, the vast majority of secessionists also responded to the poll saying they still intended to vote DA, but it was leverage nonetheless.

At the time, the DA made several public promises, including holding a referendum on the devolution of several public services, and a question on secession itself, but promised to only deliver after the election this year (haha).

Phil Craig decided to make them put their money where their mouth is, and drew up a Bill for the Provincial Parliament, called the Peoples Bill. It leveraged several features of the present constitution as well as three international treaties signed by the ANC government, in order to declare a right to self-determination for the Western Cape people.

The DA, fearing that this would derail their plans for a national coalition government, stalled, promising to put it on the floor. Eventually Phil sent it to the VF+, who introduced it. The DA-dominated legislature however, declared it a low priority, and delayed voting on it until after a bill of their own creation - the Western Cape Provincial Powers Bill - had been finalised.

It was a toothless and almost entirely symbolic bill, with no teeth whatsoever, and mere established that the Provincial Government should look for opportunities to devolve power.

Then they voted down the Peoples Bill.

And now that they have successfully defeated the independence movement by outlasting public interest in it, and successfully wielding public fears and hopes to deceive them into believing the country can be saved by kissing the big frog in Pretoria, they feel no urgent need to address this issue.

But it's worse than simply burying their heads and taking a breather on a few free services.

The biggest issue for the past 15 years has been violent crime. Until around 2011, homicide in the province was falling. But for some reason that year, the trend reversed. The reason for this rapid reversal, in my opinion, has been the 2011 deal between Jacob Zuma and the Cape gangs, which veteran investigative journalist Sam Sole uncovered a decade ago.

It may have caught some readers' attention that this period also coincides with the tenure of Bheki Cele, the most corrupt and incompetent member of the worst government in South Africa.

Cele is gone now, as is Mzwandile Tiyo, the former head of SAPS crime intelligence, suspected by some of being involved in the assassination of Lt. Col. Charl Kinnear, who fingered him for gang ties. Tiyo is being charged with a clownshow abuse-of-powers incident relating to his efforts to recover a laptop stolen from him in the township near Paarl.

So it seems that the DA have gotten something for the Cape out of the national coalition deal, but what did they give in return?

Well, they appear to have subordinated the Cape Town metropolitan police to the national SAPS structures by placing their command in a common committee, along the lines of the ANC's proposed model for centralising development, called the District Development Model, which aims to circumvent the division of the spheres of government, and which the DA decried before the election.

So what has happened is not that the DA have gotten nothing devolved, but in fact they have given up control of the key area everyone wanted them to gain control.

You may well be asking at this point, what could they have done? Well, it turns out I did uncover something useful when I was compiling the devolution document.

The problem with the metro cops is that they have no powers of search-and-seizure, no powers of investigation, only enforcement. This can be gotten around in large part with a simple instrument - the Premier's power to initiate a Special Commission of Inquiry, which bears these powers, and confers it on the office bearers which serve the Commission. Additionally, the Provincial parliament has the power to institute municipal police forces across the province - a metro police for every municipality in the Cape.

Together, these two elements give them the power to institute a province-wide organised crime unit which could crush gang crime forever, and make life a living hell for the ANC wherever their corrupt interests touch the Cape.

But there is no will to act. They prefer to beg for authority from the state, and whine when it is not given.

You could call it betrayal, but I don't think they care a jot about any real outcome at all.