Let’s bring proper service delivery and stabilize City of Tshwane

Please find attached soundbite by Randall Williams

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen,

For the last 10 months I have had the privilege of being the Executive Mayor in the City of Tshwane.

It has undoubtedly been one of the greatest honours of my life to have served my country as the leader of our capital city.

I became the Executive Mayor at the beginning of November 2020 after the city had been plunged into eight months of chaos by the ANC provincial government.

This came after they unlawfully dissolved our Municipal Council and imposed unelected administrators to run the capital.

In doing so they effectively collapsed service delivery and drove the city to the brink of financial ruin.

Since assuming office my commitment to our residents was very simple, that I would restore basic service delivery and stabilize the finances of the municipality.

This is exactly where I have placed by focus during the last 10 months as we have sought to restore proper governance to the City of Tshwane.

We have done this with a minority government which has brought with it, its own challenges that we have had to overcome.

What it is has shown us, is that we can do so much more with a proper majority so that we can govern the city outright and fully implement the policy positions of the Democratic Alliance to take the city forward.

I am immensely humbled by the DA’s decision to select me to contest the position of mayoral candidate for the City of Tshwane.

I intend to fully embrace this opportunity as it would be an honour to carry on serving the residents of Tshwane as their Executive Mayor.

I would like to thank all those that have supported me thus far in this journey, particularly my Mayoral Committee, my colleagues in the Tshwane caucus, the DA leadership, activists and supporters and all the residents of Tshwane for the faith you have shown in me.

Together we can take Nelson Mandela Bay forward again

Please find attached a soundbite by Nqaba Bhanga

Today I humbly accept the Democratic Alliance’s nomination as its mayoral candidate for the Nelson Mandela Bay Metro. This is indeed a great honour.

I’ve seen the social inequalities that the people of Nelson Mandela Bay are confronted with due to more than two decades of ANC government. Addressing these inequalities is the compass that guides and motivates me to continue to serve the people of Nelson Mandela Bay.

Until we have redressed poverty and unemployment, I cannot fold my arms and watch a match that I am supposed to be playing.

I commit myself fully to this mayoral campaign and cannot wait to travel to all corners of our beautiful city to engage with all residents.

This campaign will be demanding, but I will not falter and will speak to all our people as their current and future mayor.

My vision is to return NMB to its rightful place as the economic powerhouse of the province. We will strive to return quality service delivery to the Metro, by clamping down on corruption and maladministration within the municipality. We will create an enabling environment for business to thrive and address unemployment. We will make our communities safer to ensure a better life for all.

The DA and its coalition partners were making progress during our first tenure in government, between 2016 to 2018.

Some of the successes achieved during those two years include:
• NMB went from being in the red to having a R2 billion surplus, receiving a AAA credit rating;
• The City established a new metro police service;
• We stopped R615-million of corrupt contracts;
• The City achieved the best Urban Settlement Development Grants spending in the country;
• We instituted Shot-spotter technology to help curb gang violence;
• Almost 10 000 bucket toilets were eradicated; and
• We put the IPTS buses on the road for the first time.

Since returning to government, in December 2020, the DA and its coalition partners have again made great strides in turning around the destruction brought to the city by two years of corrupt ANC-led coalition governance.

We have fixed leaks, streetlights and our roads. We have acted against corruption, passed a service delivery focused budget, we are cleaning the city and we have been putting plans in place to address our water crisis.

Since returning to government, we have achieved some of the following successes:
• 59 288 residents are receiving access to free basic services.
• Almost 8000 potholes have been repaired.
• More than 15 000 water leaks have been repaired
• Almost 12 000 sewerage complaints have been resolved
• 2631 job opportunities have been created through EPWP.

• The reactivation of ShotSpotter in January 2021 has led to emergency response deployment at 244 shooting emergencies and gun-related incidents have decreased by 67% in Helenvale.
• Under the previous coalition, almost no title deeds were issued to qualifying beneficiaries. More than 6200 unissued title deeds have been identified and issuing of these commenced in July.

The DA believes that the people of Nelson Mandela Bay deserve uninterrupted good governance for the next five years. We need to prevent chaos and instability. This is only possible if the DA receives a majority of 51%.

The DA is the biggest political party in NMB and has a proud track record of good governance. In 2016 the DA missed out on a majority by 12 500 votes. This is all it will take to enjoy five uninterrupted years of DA good governance.

Your vote will mean the difference between a city of despair or a city of hope; between a destitute impoverished city, laid low by corrupt cadres, or a growing, prosperous city, where good governance ensures public services are prioritised to serve the people.

Where the DA governs, we get things done. Together we can take Nelson Mandela Bay forward again.

It is time to get basic services back on track in Johannesburg

Please find attached a soundbite by Mpho Phalatse.

I am so honoured to accept my party’s nomination to stand as Mayor of Johannesburg.

I stand ready to take up the tireless task of challenging for the leadership of the Metro, so that I can dedicate my every day in office to making Johannesburg work for our residents.

The City of Johannesburg deserves so much better. Under the current government, it is the capital of service delivery backlogs. Countless electrical outages, water shortages, and roads riddled with potholes – this is not how the economic hub of Africa is meant to function. And I cannot stand to see it go on.

I feel energized just thinking about hitting the ground in this campaign, day after day, to be at one with our residents, to hear them and to take forward their plight. In me, the people of Johannesburg have a champion, a friend and a committed servant. I’m wholeheartedly committed to building upon the DA’s record of good governance for the people of Johannesburg so that they can realize five full years of real change.

It is an opportunity to galvanize the whole of society, to reimagine and rebuild Johannesburg to a city of hope – alive with opportunity. We will clean up the administration, clean up the city, sweep out the rot, deliver services, grow the economy and make Johannesburg the City of Golden Opportunities.

I have stood to become Mayor of Johannesburg because I am built for endurance. I am not afraid of the challenge. I have overcome many hurdles before, both in my personal and professional life. Most importantly, I want to bring my 15 years of working experience in the public service sector, including more than three years of serving as the MMC for Health and Social Development in the City of Johannesburg, to the office of Mayor.

People of Johannesburg, and indeed South Africa, I begin this campaign with a deep appreciation for the reality of the City. Residents do not need meaningless dream-like rhetoric of making Johannesburg a ‘world-class African city’. You need reality, hard work, selfless commitment, vision – and we will start by getting basic service delivery back on track.

Wherever the DA governs, life gets better – it is a fact. DA governments get things done. This is possible in Johannesburg, after this Election. Together let us end the rot, end the decay, stop the decline, and get Jozi working.

I am ready, and so are all of you.

Unite behind the DA to secure Cape Town’s future

Please find attached English and Afrikaans soundbites by Geordin Hill-Lewis.

Friends, colleagues, and my fellow Capetonians,

It is the greatest honour of my life to today accept the nomination as the DA’s Mayoral Candidate for Cape Town.

This event today is a testament to the vibrancy of the DA’s commitment to South Africa’s constitutional democracy.

Throughout the long and dark Covid winter we all lived through during the past two years, the DA has worked to protect the sanctity of the democratic process.

Even under unprecedented strain, our party’s rigorous selection process ensured that every aspirant candidate had a fair and equal chance to contest for this position in the best interests of the people of Cape Town.

My sincere thanks to everyone who sacrificed their time and energy to keep our selection process on track to ensure that the DA is ready for the local government election.

Where other parties are running scared, the DA says bring on the 27th of October!

I’d also like to pay tribute to the man from whom I today receive the baton as the DA’s mayoral candidate in Cape Town.

Mayor Dan Plato was not only a worthy opponent and a leader who will long be remembered for the courage he displayed in guiding Cape Town though of some of its stormiest times in recent history, but he is also an exemplary democrat in the finest sense of the word.

Dan, ek is trots om te volg daar waar jy die pad uitgelê het, en ek eer jou vir die enorme bydra wat jy tot Kaapstad se vooruitgang gemaak het.

Most importantly, to all the people of Cape Town – as your Mayor, I will work day and night to bring better service delivery to every resident of our city.

No matter where you live, every Capetonian must live in a place that is safe, clean and with access to the services that everyone needs for dignity.

I look forward to meeting you in your neighbourhood soon. In the months and years ahead, we will get to know each other well, as we build our home, our city, together.

In me and in the DA, you have an ally in the quest to secure a better future for you and your family.

We all know that Cape Town works and is already the best-run city in South Africa. But we also know that the failing national government is holding our city back from fulfilling its true potential.

To truly secure Cape Town’s future, we must now do even more than ever before. By uniting behind the DA, we will banish this brutal winter that saw so many of us lose so much, and we will make sure that spring comes again in Cape Town.

Thank you.

Meet the DA’s candidates for Metro Mayors – the Team that will Get Things Done

The following speech was delivered today by DA Federal Leader John Steenhuisen MP. 

My fellow citizens

It is my pleasure and my privilege to address you here today at the announcement of the DA’s candidates for Mayor of South Africa’s major cities in the upcoming Local Government Elections.

We, in the DA, feel that this is an important part of the democratic process. We have a duty to let voters know, well ahead of the elections, who will be tasked with running their cities and towns should we win in those municipalities, or secure the majority share of a coalition government.

Democracy isn’t just about casting your vote on election day. It’s a process and it should start well before the ballot box.

The word “democracy” comes from two Greek words – “demos”, which means people, and “kratos” which means rule. It’s literally “government by the people”, and for this to have any real meaning the people need to play an active role.

This means knowing exactly who you’ll be voting for. It means being able to interrogate the offer of a candidate so that the choice made on election day is an informed one.

It’s about listening to what they have to say, and then challenging the parts you either don’t agree with or simply don’t believe.

It’s about knowing what your options are, because otherwise what exactly are you weighing up? What are their plans for your town or city?

If they’re an incumbent and you feel they have done a poor job so far, they must be given an opportunity to answer for this.

And if they’re a new candidate and perhaps unknown to voters, there has to be a way – and enough time – to get to know them.

Ideally you want to see your two or three frontrunner candidates testing their offers against each other.

Parties that back their candidates and believe in their offer look forward to this kind of engagement in the build-up to an election. They are eager for voters to ask them for more details or press them on things they’re unsure of or don’t agree with.

But parties that don’t believe in their candidates – or even worse, that can’t actually arrive at a name because the internal contestation is so fraught and toxic – these parties hide behind a veil of anonymity right up to the election date.

At the DA we’ve spent an entire year on our candidate selection process.

This has included extensive interviews, practical assignments and assessments by independent panels to get to the point where can confidently say: These are the people we trust to bring the DA’s vision to life in local government. Now please ask them everything you’d like to know.

Each of them will have an opportunity to tell you a little more about themselves, but allow me to introduce to you the men and women who will stand as the DA’s candidates for Mayor of the five Metro municipalities of Ekurhuleni, Tshwane, Johannesburg, Nelson Mandela Bay and Cape Town.

Our candidate for Mayor of the City of Ekurhuleni is Refiloe Nt’sekhe.

In the City of Tswhane our candidate for Mayor is Randall Williams.

In the City of Johannesburg, our candidate is Mpho Phalatse.

In Nelson Mandela Bay, our mayoral candidate is Nqaba Banga.

And our candidate for Mayor of the City of Cape Town is Geordin Hill-Lewis.

These men and women have proven to us that they not only carry the DA’s vision for building a better South Africa into everything they do, they have also demonstrated that they are not afraid to put in the effort that this will require.

We’ve long held the view in the DA that if we want to fix this country, we have to start by building a capable state.

This means governments that are made up of fit-for-purpose individuals, who are not tainted by corruption and who have demonstrated that they have the commitment and the drive that any good public servant needs.

That’s why our candidate selection process is so rigorous – we can’t afford to get it wrong.

We also believe that voters should be given enough time to get to know these candidates.

Whether the elections go ahead at the end of October – as they’ve been proclaimed – or whether the courts decide that they need to be moved to early next year, this will give voters more than enough opportunity to do their election homework.

You will notice that very few other parties have done this. The only other party to govern in municipalities and metros, the ANC, certainly does not seem to have any desire to announce its mayoral candidates.

And this is a shame, because South African voters deserve far better from this hard-won democracy. They deserve a proper government by the people where they get to play an active role all the way up to election day.

It’s still not too late for this to happen. I’d like to challenge the ANC to do what we’ve done, for the sake of our democracy. Make this election the open contest it was always meant to be. Put your candidates out there in front of the people, alongside ours.

It won’t be hard to find us. For the next few months we’re going to be out there, on the ground, every day.

I am personally going to spend a lot of time with each of these candidates here, taking our message to communities across the country.

So I’m calling on the ANC to meet us there – whether this is in a town hall debate, a televised debate or a debate on the radio. Name your candidates and let the voters interrogate them together with ours.

That’s what a real democracy looks like.

Fellow citizens, if we’ve ever needed this kind of open, engaging election campaign, it is now.

I don’t need to tell you that the state of so many of our towns and cities is dire.

Dozens of municipalities across South Africa have completely collapsed under the weight of corrupt, predatory, cadre-deployed governments, and hundreds more are on the verge of collapse.

The problem is so big that placing these distressed municipalities under administration and running them by remote control is simply not feasible because there are just too many of them.

This situation is not normal.

We can no longer pretend that the total implosion of service delivery and infrastructure in these towns and cities is normal.

We cannot pretend that it is normal for companies and their factories to have to relocate at great cost and with massive job losses because they cannot be guaranteed the very basics like water, electricity and usable roads.

We cannot pretend that it is normal for municipalities to owe water and power utilities billions and billions of Rands.

We cannot pretend that a river of sewage running down a street where children play is normal.

We cannot pretend that it is perfectly normal for hundreds of municipalities to rack up billions in irregular and unauthorised spending every year, and to never get a stamp of clean governance from the Auditor General.

We cannot pretend that daily protests in multiple communities against an invisible, unresponsive government is normal.

None of these things are normal.

What is normal though – or what should be – is a government that either responds by fixing these things or is fired and replaced by another government that is prepared to fulfil the five simple objects of local government as set out in Section 152 of our Constitution.

That’s what needs to happen now. Voters need to start firing and hiring governments.

There is no other way to undo what has happened to these broken municipalities, and there are no shortcuts.

So why should voters trust these people here on the stage to run their towns and cities, rather than the ANC or any of the other smaller parties? What does the DA offer in government that these other parties don’t?

Well, let me perhaps start by telling you what the DA doesn’t offer.

The DA’s offer is not some fading struggle history or similar stories from the past. Because none of that can fix what needs to be fixed now.

The DA’s offer is not that it looks or speaks like a certain type of person. Some parties will come to you and try to convince you that you can only be represented by someone from your own race or culture. But that kind of racial nationalism and identity politics cannot fix what needs to be fixed.

And the DA’s offer is not every imaginable pie-in-the-sky promise of free things. Parties that do this know they will never have to deliver, and so they promise everything to everyone without ever doing the maths. That’s no way to fix what needs to be fixed.

The DA is a forward-looking party. We acknowledge the injustice of the past, but we make plans for the future.

The DA is a party of ideas and values, and not identity. Which is also why we are the most diverse party, by far, in South Africa.

The DA is an actual party of government. This means we’re in the business of making government work by carefully planning how every Rand is spent for the benefit of the people. It’s easy to call yourself a revolutionary party and just make things up. The DA operates in the real world.

But above all, the DA is a party of results. Not past glories, not race, not populist promises. Just results.

Our achievements where we govern are what set us miles and miles apart from any other party.

And that’s why our message to voters in this election campaign – and the message these candidates will take with them on the road – is that the DA gets things done.

That’s all we want voters to judge us by. Because if you want to have any chance of turning these struggling municipalities around and giving the people who live there hope for a better future, you must start by doing the actual job of a local government.

And that’s what our party does far better than anyone else.

The DA governs less than 10% of municipalities in South Africa, but the top 5 are all DA-run. All the failing municipalities are run by the ANC.

DA municipalities consistently outstrip ANC municipalities when it comes to basic service delivery, clean audits, the maintenance of infrastructure, attracting investments and creating jobs.

DA municipalities are at the forefront of protecting their residents from droughts and water shortages, as we saw in the world-class effort by the City of Cape Town to defeat Day Zero.

Compare this to the current water situation in NMB or in towns like Makhanda, where Day Zero has already arrived for many.

DA municipalities are also leading the charge in shielding their residents to some degree from Eskom’s failures and load-shedding.

The City of Cape Town often manages to keep its electricity customers on one load-shedding stage less than the rest of the country, and municipalities like Stellenbosch are preparing to become even less reliant on Eskom by taking steps to procure their power elsewhere.

But nowhere has the direct link between good, clean governance and service delivery been more clear than in Nelson Mandela Bay following the 2016 Local Government election. The impact of the DA-led coalition government was immediate.

Roads were resurfaced, streetlights were fixed and water infrastructure repaired. The city’s integrated bus service was launched, along with the metro police. And, importantly the city’s finances were turned around and for the first time in years the deficit became a surplus.

Fast-forward two years later, when the coalition of corruption ousted the DA-led coalition in a council coup, and every single gain made in those two years under the DA was reversed.

Today NMB is back where it started before the DA took over and the city’s coffers have been stripped bare once more.

The rise and fall of service delivery in NMB perfectly matches the electing and eventual ousting of the DA government.

And all this says to me is that we simply have to do it again, and this time make sure our majority is strong enough to withstand a coup by the corrupt.

And not just in NMB. We need to protect and bolster our majority wherever we govern so that we can continue our work uninterrupted.

Just look at what happened in the City of Cape Town after the DA took over in 2006. For that first term we were locked in a very tricky coalition arrangement, and our position in government was always touch-and-go.

But in the next election we managed to stretch that majority far enough to govern outright, and this allowed us to start making the big gains that are only possible in back-to-back terms.

Today, after three uninterrupted terms under a DA government, the City of Cape Town operates in a different league to the other metros, on every single criteria.

Similarly, a municipality like Midvaal in Gauteng has enjoyed a decade of uninterrupted DA governance, and it has left its neighbouring ANC-run municipalities in its dust.

Why? Because the DA gets things done. It’s that simple.

This is what we want to bring to even more towns and cities, and this is why we have assembled this team here on stage. The team that can get things done.

I know them, and I know they are not afraid of the hard work that lies ahead – not only in this election campaign, but also once they take office.

I want to invite you to get to know them too. Look out for them on the road over the next few months. Follow them on social media. Understand what their plans are and see whether this aligns with your own ideas.

Our country is in a very tough space right now, but I assure you we will get through this. We will rebuild our communities, our towns and our cities into the vibrant, inclusive places we’ve always dreamt of.

We will grow our local economies again, so that people have hope of finding jobs and building a future wherever they live.

We will reclaim our democracy from those who tried to steal it for their own selfish gains.

We will put the bad days behind us and look to the future with hope.

But first we need to put in place governments that live and breathe this vision.

Governments that don’t steal.

Governments that serve the people and not the other way round.

I’m talking about DA governments that get things done.

Thank you.

Failure to produce Goldman reports leaves victims open to further abuse

The DA has submitted an appeal to our Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA) application in order to obtain the Goldman Report into allegations of sexual abuse at Swim South Africa (SSA).

The Goldman Report sheds light on the SSA-commissioned investigation into allegations that swim coaches at the federation are sexually abusing swimmers, some of them minors.

The truth is that sexual misconduct seems to have been swept under the carpet at SSA for a long time. The federation seems more intent on protecting its reputation and protecting the vile predators than it does the mental and physical well-being of its swimmers.

Under Criminal Law (Sexual Offences and Related Matters) Amendment Act 32 of 2007 it is an offence to fail to report knowledge of the sexual abuse of minors to the South African Police Service (SAPS), but this seems to be the case where SSA officials have not only continued to violate the trust of their swimmers and so placed them in harms’ way, but have also broken the law by failing to open cases against the alleged abusers at the federation. If SSA has indeed followed the letter of the law, the DA challenges SSA president Alan Fritz to provide the evidence that they have done so.

The DA will continue to fight to protect all our athletes for all the sports codes, and our fight to protect swimmers at SSA will not end with a deemed refusal to our PAIA application. Athletes in South Africa have immense obstacles to overcome, and worry about whether they’re safe when at practice should not be one of them.

SSA and the other sporting federations only exist to develop athletes. Protecting them so they reach the top tiers of their respective sports should be the core mandate. It is shocking that SSA seemingly continues to fail at this at every corner.

Sexual violence and farm attack stats highlight how Cele is failing vulnerable groups

Please find attached soundbite by Andrew Whitfield MP.

The latest quarterly crime statistics released by the Minister of Police Bheki Cele for the period 1 April to 30 June 2021, is an indictment on him and the South African Police Service (SAPS).

The Minister today sought to whitewash these figures by stating that they were “high and unnatural” as a result of the lockdown. However, the prevalence of violent crime is still shocking and abnormal.

The murder rate is up by 60.2%, with a total of 5 760 people losing their lives during this period. Contact crimes saw a 60.6% increase and aggravated robberies went up by a staggering 92.2%.

During the period of April to June, there were 181 attacks on farms and small holdings which resulted in 15 murders. There were 47 more attacks compared to the same period last year. The need for visible, boots on the ground policing in rural areas is critical to ensure the safety of these communities.

The DA remains concerned by the high levels of sexual violence and domestic abuse which continues to ravage communities, especially women and children. In the three months of reporting, more than 10 000 people were raped. 500 of the reported cases were connected to domestic violence incidents.

With every batch of crime statistics released it becomes increasingly clear that vulnerable communities and groups continue to bear the brunt of heinous physical acts of violence. They are also the biggest victims of Minister Cele and the SAPS’ incompetence.

It’s time for Minister Cele to take responsibility for his failure to keep South Africans safe and resign.

DA calls for DBE to revise policy on school safety to protect learners from sexual assault

Please find attached soundbite by Desiree van der Walt MP.

The DA calls on the Department of Basic Education (DBE) to revise its policy and procedures related to curbing the scourge of sexual assault at schools.

This week during a presentation by the DBE and the South African Council for Educators (SACE) before Parliament’s Portfolio Committee of Basic Education regarding programmes implemented aimed to curb gender-based violence, specifically sexual assault in schools, it was revealed that between 2019/20 and 2020/21 there were 275 reported cases of sexual misconduct, of which only 50 have led to dismissals.

Further to this SACE reported that between 2015 and 2020 there were 583 cases of sexual misconduct reported in schools, of which 119 was rape and 273 was due to sexual relationships between teachers and learners.

The number of sexual misconduct cases at schools are said to be much higher considering that many incidents go unreported.

The DA calls government to prioritise the following areas to put an end to sexual abuse of learners at schools:

  • Proper vetting processes must be implemented for all basic education teachers, support staff, coaches and general workers.
  • The DBE must encourage schools to report all sexual offences to SAPS. There is a need for punishments for those who do not report such acts.
  • Create a policy whereby learners must be escorted by a vetted teacher or vetted teacher assistant to the bathroom.
  • In the event that the teacher cannot escort the learner, to consider and implement a buddy system for learners to escort each other to bathrooms to prevent predators from taking advantage of learners when they are alone.
  • At the beginning of this Women’s Month, a shocking report emerged that a 6-year-old learner was allegedly raped at a school in Soshunguve by a general worker – previous cases have been reported at the school in question.

Gender based violence and sexual assault is a societal ill that is plaguing our communities. Schools are a microcosm of our communities, and we must implement all forms of strategies to ensure our learners are safe from such threats. Not only should we use education as the best tool for gender-based violence (GBV) prevention, but we must implement immediate strategies to protect our learners from predators.

ANC’s election of Mapisa-Nqakula has disarmed Parliament and accountability

Please find attached video and soundbite by Natasha Mazzone MP.

The ANC’s election of Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula as Speaker of the National Assembly has disarmed Parliament from carrying out its mandate to ensure accountability and transparency.

It is an indictment on the ANC and highlights their determination to render Parliament into a toothless institution.

The DA maintains that Mapisa-Nqakule is unfit for the position of Speaker and that her election makes a complete mockery of Parliament and it’s principles of transparency, accountability and integrity.

What makes matters worse, is that the new Speaker is heading up the very institution which she for years tried to undermine and where serious allegations of misconduct have been levelled against her.

Her election is therefore not ‘democracy at work’ but rather another example of how the ANC’s policy of cadre deployment will ruin yet another democratic institution.

The DA will however continue to fight tooth and nail to ensure that Parliament works for the people of South Africa in spite of the ANC’s attempts to undermine it.

DA cautions the DBE on proposal to remove October school holidays 

The DA calls on the Department of Basic Education (DBE) to revoke its proposal to remove the October school holidays from the academic calendar.

Reports indicate that the DBE seeks to cancel the October school holidays as an attempt to catch up on lost curriculum.

While it is important to implement strategies to catch up on lost time, the Department cannot simply suspend learners’ holidays. Holidays play a crucial role in allowing learners to take much needed time off, which is crucial to ensuring good mental health and will aid the learner in their preparation for the following term to come.

Instead of once again disrupting the academic year and putting learners and teachers of risk of burnout, the DBE should look at the importance of finding innovative ways to catch up on lost time.

The DA has written to the Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Basic Education to highlight the following:

  • Request that Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga revoke the proposal to cancel October holidays.
  • Invite the University of Cape Town to present to the committee on the opportunities and challenges of their new online school, and on how virtual schools could solve the chronic challenges faced by the sector.

Instead of making unilateral decisions without the inputs of teachers, parents, learners and other stakeholders, the Department should’ve looked to find innovative solutions that can be implemented to assist the sector in navigating the new challenges posed by Covid-19 and its various variants.

Unless we find proper strategies to catch up on the curriculum, prevent further dropouts and fix dilapidating infrastructure, Covid will continue to disrupt the proper functioning of our schools.