ANC Mayoral Candidates remain in hiding

Please find attached a soundbite by Natasha Mazzone MP.

The ANC’s hiding of its Mayoral Candidates shows that the party takes voters for granted.

Openly presenting candidates, after rigorous internal selection processes, takes voters into the confidence of a party and presents voters a clear and unambiguous choice.

What does the ANC have to hide?

We note that ANC Deputy President David Mabuza yesterday suggested that its mayoral candidates may be announced after the election, but this is clearly a grave misunderstanding of how elections work, by Mr Mabuza.

It cannot be that infighting within the ANC is so bad, that South Africans have to play a guessing game when casting their ballots. Once again, the ANC is putting the ANC before the country.

Surely the ANC wants to contest these elections, and come out of hiding?

The DA issues a formal challenge to the ANC: Come out of hiding, name your mayoral candidates, and stop putting your party divisions ahead of honesty to voters.

As the only party with a candidate in every ward, and the only party that can beat the ANC and challenge for power across South Africa, the DA is ready to go toe-to-toe with ANC candidates, if only they would come out of hiding.

Help us to bring change to more towns and municipalities by making a donation towards our 2021 Local Government Election campaign, click here.

End the lockdown, end the State of Disaster, and stop the corruption vibes!

We repeat our call for President Ramaphosa to end the lockdown altogether, to save livelihoods. People are suffering and jobs continue to be lost unnecessarily to senseless restrictions that have long since been ignored by his own party. President Ramaphosa and his government appear not to grasp the severity of our jobs crisis that has produced the world’s highest recorded unemployment rate of 44%.

Only the most callously uncaring leaders would continue to force job-destroying restrictions on law-abiding people while breaking those rules themselves, as the ANC did yet again in its manifesto launch last week where there was not even an attempt at mask-wearing, social distancing or limiting the gathering to 500. This is hypocrisy of the worst order. All those who broke the law should be prosecuted like all the ordinary people who have been charged for lockdown violations in the past 18 months.

We also repeat our call for an end to the State of Disaster, which is enabling corruption by allowing government departments to bypass stricter financial control measures. The SIU report into the Digital Vibes scandal shows exactly why the State of Disaster must be ended immediately, and why the ANC are so reluctant to do so. Corruption with impunity is the only thing holding his party together. Which is why President Ramaphosa dragged his feet on making the Digital Vibes report public, and failed to condemn Zweli Mkhize, praising him instead for “serving our nation well”. It is not enough for those involved in this scandal to lose their jobs. They too must be prosecuted and jailed if found guilty.

There is no justification for continuing the lockdown and the State of Disaster. Covid cases are decreasing across all nine provinces, every adult has by now had ample opportunity to get vaccinated, and people are well aware of the precautions they need to take to manage the risks they face. South Africa’s economy will not recover while the threat of irrational restrictions imposed with no notice at all continues to hang over people.

Businesses require certainty and must no longer be held ransom to the whims of people who have no idea how jobs are created and whose own jobs are secure no matter what. Government should rather focus its efforts on educating and encouraging people on the safety and good sense of taking the vaccine. A well-run vaccine drive will be far more effective than a mandatory vaccination policy.

Furthermore, lockdown restrictions simply tilt the electoral playing field for those willing to break the law, undermining the prospects for a free and fair election.

For the sake of millions of South Africans who’ve been plunged deeper into poverty and face an incredibly uncertain future, end the lockdown and the State of Disaster now, Mr President, and stop with your party’s corruption vibes.

South Africa needs “Phuma ANC” weekends so that on 1 November, we can start moving the country to Adjusted ANC Level Zero.

Help us to bring change to more towns and municipalities by making a donation towards our 2021 Local Government Election campaign, click here.

DoH suspensions only the beginning

Please find attached soundbite by Siviwe Gwarube MP.

The DA has noted the suspensions of the implicated officials of the Department of Health following the publication of the Special Investigative Unit (SIU) report into Digital Vibes. This is only the beginning. What needs to follow are criminal investigations and prosecutions.

The 3 month delay of sitting on this report and not making it public by President Cyril Ramaphosa has effectively delayed these investigations and has served to protect those who have grave allegations leveled against them.

Tomorrow evening the DA will use the portfolio committee meeting, during which the Minister of Health and his Department will appear, to ask the relevant questions around this scandal. Most importantly we need to ensure stability in the Department during the country’s biggest vaccination roll-out.

Secondly, we need to make sure that there is a clear consequence management plan for those who have been implicated and found guilty of stealing public money.

It is not surprising that last night the President doubled down and thanked Dr Zweli Mkhize for having served the country well, while this report is damning against him. The reality is, there is no good or bad ANC – it is just one party that has turned into a crime syndicate and is led by President Ramaphosa who is too weak to act.

Help us to bring change to more towns and municipalities by making a donation towards our 2021 Local Government Election campaign, click here.

DA reports GOOD to IEC over blatant Cape Town by-laws lies

The DA in the Western Cape will today lay an official complaint against the so-called GOOD party with the IEC.

This follows the party blatantly spreading false information to score cheap political points regarding the City of Cape Town passing amendments to by-laws yesterday.

It would appear that the only thing De Lille and Herron’s party is GOOD at, is lying.

GOOD blatantly and intentionally sought to spread false information by claiming that the City of Cape Town criminalised the Islamic call to prayer and homeless persons. All this as part of their election campaigning.

The DA-run government in Cape Town has never and will never criminalise the call to prayer nor have we or will we criminalise homeless persons in the City.

We strongly condemn GOOD’s abhorrent misinformation during their campaigning and call on the IEC to take strong and urgent action against GOOD and Brett Herron in terms of the Electoral Act.

Section 89(2)(b) and (c) in Part 1 of the Electoral Act specifically deals with intentional false statements. This Section states that no person may publish any false information with the intention of:
a. disrupting or preventing an election
b. creating hostility or fear in order to influence the conduct or outcome of an election

It is an offence for any person to contravene any provision in Part 1 of the Act and they are subject to penalty as set out in Section 98(a), which includes a fine or imprisonment. The IEC should do what is right and sanction GOOD.

We welcome the action taken by the Mayor of Cape Town, Dan Plato, to engage with leaders in the Muslim community in order to set the record straight about GOOD’s cheap and shameful politicking.

The amendment to the Streets by-law does not silence mosques nor does it criminalise homeless persons.

Under the new by-laws, the City’s Law Enforcement must offer shelter to people living on the streets before enforcing the law against sleeping in public places. In addition to this, Cape Town continues to offer a wide and progressive range of social assistance to the poor and vulnerable in the City.

Help us to bring change to more towns and municipalities by making a donation towards our 2021 Local Government Election campaign, click here.

Cilliers Brink braai heilige koeie op Uitgesproke

Vandag stel DA-woordvoerder en skaduminister van samewerkende regering en tradisionele sake, Cilliers Brink, sy opwindende nuwe weeklikse Afrikaanse potsending, Uitgesproke, bekend.

Die eerste bul wat by die horings gepak word is of die Wes-Kaap se strewe vir meer mag ’n model vir die res van die land kan wees.

Op Uitgesproke sal geen onderwerp taboe wees nie en gaan kwessies wat saakmaak en kwaadmaak onder ’n mikroskoop geplaas word.

Uitgesproke is op die volgende platforms beskikbaar:

Help us to bring change to more towns and municipalities by making a donation towards our 2021 Local Government Election campaign, click here.

Exposed: Drone footage shows lying ANC municipality trying to cover up service delivery failures

Please find attached soundbites in English & Afrikaans from Flip van der Steen, Cllr, as well as a link to the exposing pictures here, here, here and here .

The Democratic Alliance (DA) can today expose an ANC municipality lying to try and cover up its service delivery failures.

The DA has caught the management of Dawid Kruiper Municipality in Upington in the Northern Cape red-handed in its failure to manage the growing backlog of service vehicles awaiting repairs.

While the DA has repeatedly highlighted the excessive backlog in outstanding requisitions for vehicle parts, the municipal manager has denied that the backlog exists. He instead accused the DA of fabricating stories.

A drone image of the yard of the municipal garage, captured earlier this month, is evidence of the real story – a story of ANC deceit and collapse.

A number of service trucks can be seen standing idle, while service delivery in and around Upington continues to break down. In certain instances, something as easy to repair or replace as flat tyres has been holding up service delivery for months, as is the case with a non- functioning refuse removal truck.

In most cases, the crux of the problem rests with the ineptitude of municipal officials working in the Supply Chain Management (SCM) unit, who have no knowledge of vehicles and vehicle parts. In effect, requisitions for parts are simply never finalised. Earlier this month, the backlog of outstanding requisitions stood at 900.

Instead of the municipality implementing the DA’s proposal of appointing people with the requisite vehicle knowledge in the SCM unit, the ANC-run municipality rather folds its arms and allows the backlog to balloon further, while service delivery shrinks.

The only feasible option now is for residents of Dawid Kruiper and in municipalities all over South Africa is to accept that the ANC has failed, to vote it out at the polls and to replace it with a capable DA-run government.

The DA has a plan, as set out in our manifesto, to restore services. The choice is easy: more of the same collapsing ANC municipalities and the further breakdown of our towns for which they simply do not care; or DA municipalities that implement services and get things done, to secure a better future for everyone.

Help us to bring change to more towns and municipalities by making a donation towards our 2021 Local Government Election campaign, click here.

DA loods petisie om Afrikaans as inheemse taal te erken

Vind asseblief aangeheg ’n klankgreep van Dr Leon Schreiber LP.

Die DA het vandag ’n petisie van stapel gestuur vir die regering om Afrikaans amptelik as ’n inheemse taal te erken. Die petisie is gerig op die Minister van Hoër Onderwys en Opleiding, Blade Nzimande, in reaksie op sy klassifisering van Afrikaans as “uitheems” in sy departement se Beleidsraamwerk vir Hoëronderwysinstellings.

Die petisie eis dat Nzimande dadelik die definisie van inheemse tale aanpas om Afrikaans in te sluit, dat hy die Afrikaanssprekende gemeenskap in die openbaar en onvoorwaardelik om verskoning vra vir sy optrede, en dat hy openbare universiteite versoek om hul taalbeleide aan te pas om ruimte te skep vir Afrikaans se status as inheemse taal.

Nzimande volhard met die haatlike, kwetsende en onwetenskaplike klassifisering van Afrikaans as “uitheems” ten spyte van die Grondwethof se eenparige uitspraak in die onlangse Unisa-hofsaak, waartydens regter Steven Majiedt uitdruklik daarop gewys het dat die begrip “inheemse tale” ook Afrikaans insluit.

Majiedt en die volbank regters het verder daarteen gewaarsku dat “die wanopvatting van Afrikaans as ‘die witmense se taal’ en ‘die taal van die onderdrukker’…’n skreiende wanvoorstelling van die taal en die ware oorsprong daarvan [is]. Dit verg herhaling dat Afrikaans tans oorheersend die taal van swartmense is. En dit word gebesig deur swartmense, nie net in sogenaamde “bruin” woonbuurte nie, maar ook in baie swart woonbuurte in verskeie streke van ons land.

Die DA het ook reeds ’n klag oor Nzimande se definisie van Afrikaans as “uitheems” by die Menseregtekommissie ingedien, omdat ons glo dat die klassifisering inbraak maak op die reg van die diverse Afrikaanssprekende gemeenskap tot moedertaalonderrig, gelykheid en waardigheid. Die definisie skep ook die indruk dat die ANC regering die sprekers van Afrikaans as “uitheems” of op die een of ander manier “vreemd” aan Suid-Afrika beskou.

In reaksie het Nzimande hom skuldig gemaak aan presies die soort “skreiende wanvoorstelling” waarteen regter Majiedt gewaarsku het, deur besware teen die klassifisering as “rassisties” en “nasionalisties” af te maak.

Die DA moedig alle Suid-Afrikaners aan om hierdie petisie te onderteken, waarna die DA dit aan Nzimande sal oorhandig met die eis dat Afrikaans sy regmatige plek inneem as ‘n volwaardige, inheemse Suid-Afrikaanse taal.

DA launches petition to recognise Afrikaans as an indigenous language

Please find attached English and Afrikaans soundbites by Dr Leon Schreiber MP.

The DA today launched a petition for government to officially recognise Afrikaans as an indigenous language. The petition is addressed to the Minister of Higher Education and Training, Blade Nzimande, in response to his classification of Afrikaans as “foreign” in his Department’s Policy Framework for Higher Education Institutions.

The petition demands that Minister Nzimande immediately adapt the definition of indigenous languages to include Afrikaans, that he publicly and unconditionally apologise to the Afrikaans-speaking community for his actions, and that he requests public universities to adapt their language policies to accommodate Afrikaans’ status as an indigenous language.

Minister Nzimande persists with the hateful, hurtful and unscientific classification of Afrikaans as “foreign” despite the Constitutional Court’s unanimous ruling in the recent Unisa court case, during which Judge Steven Majiedt explicitly pointed out that the concept “indigenous languages” also includes Afrikaans.

Judge Majiedt and a full bench of judges further warned that the “misconception that [Afrikaans] is ‘the language of whites’ and ‘the language of the oppressor’” is a blatant misrepresentation of the language and its true origin. In fact, Afrikaans is currently predominantly the language of black people. And it is used by black people, not only in so-called “coloured” townships, but also in many black townships in various regions of our country.

The DA has also lodged a complaint with the Human Rights Commission about Minister Nzimande’s definition of Afrikaans as “foreign” because we believe that the classification infringes on the rights of the diverse Afrikaans-speaking community to mother tongue education, equality and dignity. The definition also creates the impression that the ANC government regards the speakers of Afrikaans as “foreign” or in some way “alien” to South Africa.

In his response, Minister Nzimande makes himself guilty of exactly the kind of “iniquitous portrayal” that Judge Majiedt warned against, by dismissing the objections to this classification of Afrikaans as “racist” and “nationalist”.

The DA encourages all South Africans to sign this petition, after which the DA will hand it over to Minister Nzimande with the demand that Afrikaans be given its rightful place as a full-fledged, indigenous South African language.

Help us to bring change to more towns and municipalities by making a donation towards our 2021 Local Government Election campaign, click here.

DA will defeat Bheki Cele’s plan to hijack Cape Town law enforcement

Please find attached a soundbite by Geordin Hill-Lewis

The DA today held a mass protest in Mitchell’s Plain against Police Minister Bheki Cele’s plan to hijack local law enforcement in Cape Town. In a memorandum handed over to the Lentegeur police station, the people of Mitchell’s Plain together with the DA made it clear that we reject the ongoing efforts by Cele and the ANC to capture Cape Town’s local law enforcement powers.

As the national police service has continued to collapse under Cele’s misrule in recent years, DA-led Cape Town has stepped up by significantly expanding our city’s own law enforcement capacity, including through the flagship R1.7 billion Law Enforcement Advancement Plan (LEAP).

While SAPS cut the number of police officers deployed in Cape Town by 511 since 2018, the LEAP project is on track to an additional 1 100 law enforcers to crime hotspots throughout Cape Town by next month. Thanks to LEAP, spending on law enforcement has increased by 55% since 2016, and the arrest rate in Cape Town has tripled.

Our local law enforcement officers are Cape Town’s very own heroes in blue, because they have stepped up to fix what Cele and the national government has broken. In other parts of the country where the DA is not in government, policing has all but collapsed. We cannot allow the same to happen in Cape Town.

Cele’s plan to hijack Cape Town’s law enforcers

Instead of supporting the DA’s efforts to make Cape Town safer, Police Minister Bheki Cele and his colleagues in national government have ratcheted up their plans to hijack and destroy Cape Town’s local law enforcement capabilities. We simply cannot allow this plan to succeed, because it will leave the people of Cape Town solely at the mercy of SAPS and put thousands of lives at risk.

Just think about what will happen in Cape Town if the ANC succeeded in removing our local law enforcers from the streets. Instead of calling on competent and well-trained officers who report to the well-run City of Cape Town in their hour of need, residents will be left at the mercy of incompetent loudmouth Bheki Cele, who has already punished the people of Cape Town with the lowest police-to-citizen ratio in the entire country.

The full plan to hijack local law enforcement is articulated in two ANC schemes: the so-called Single Police Service, and the District Development Model (DDM). This Single Police Service would absorb the Cape Town Metro Police Department into SAPS, limit the powers of peace officers, move the command-and-control structure away from the city and into SAPS, and take away Cape Town’s power to set its own local policing priorities. This scheme will have disastrous consequences for Capetonians, who will lose the ability to have a second option to call on to solve their problems and will make them subject to decisions made 1 500 kilometres away in Pretoria.

In turn, the DDM would complete the planned hijacking of local policing powers by giving ANC cadres in national government the power to unconstitutionally interfere with the functions of municipalities. The DDM is premised on the idea of “one plan” and “one budget,” whereby cities like Cape Town would lose our power to set our own policing priorities and provide funding to our own law enforcement heroes.

Cele personally deployed to capture Cape Town

But perhaps the single most telling sign that the DDM is nothing but a ploy for Cele to capture and corrupt DA-led Cape Town is the fact that, under the DDM, Cele has been personally deployed as the ANC’s “DDM Champion” in Cape Town. It is patently obvious that the ANC is using the DDM as an excuse to “deploy” Cele to personally launch his assault on Cape Town law enforcement.

The DA will defeat Cele’s plan to hijack Cape Town law enforcement

The DA will fight tooth-and-nail against the Single Police Service and the DDM’s plan to hijack and capture Cape Town’s law enforcement powers. For years, Cele and the national government have failed to keep the people of Cape Town safe, so the people of Cape Town – in partnership with the DA – have started to keep ourselves safe.

While the ANC is so desperate for total control over policing that they are prepared to put the lives of Capetonians at risk, the DA has a clear plan to take even more power away from SAPS and empower our communities. The DA will:

  1. Train and deploy hundreds of additional law enforcement officers;
  2. Fight to expand municipal policing powers;
  3. Oppose the ANC’s Single Police Service plan to hijack Cape Town’s local law enforcers;
  4. Expand the capabilities of neighbourhood watches and community policing; and
  5. Fully exploit technology to fight crime, including through computer-aided dispatching, gunfire detection, more cameras and crime data analysis.

On 1 November, the people of Cape Town will face a simple question: who do they trust more to help them in their hour of greatest need, the DA or Bheki Cele? As the people of Cape Town have done so many times before, 1 November will be the time for us to reject Bheki Cele and the ANC to make sure they keep their corrupt hands off Cape Town’s local law enforcement heroes.

Help us to bring change to more towns and municipalities by making a donation towards our 2021 Local Government Election campaign, click here.

There is no justification for continued Lockdown and State of Disaster. End them now.

Please find attached soundbite from DA Federal Leader John Steenhuisen.

The Democratic Alliance (DA) calls on President Ramaphosa to end what remains of the lockdown, and lift the State of Disaster with immediate effect.

There is no justification – scientific or moral – to persist with measures that have long since been ignored by parties such as the ANC and the EFF, and only harm the law-abiding and job-creating citizens who still abide by them out of a sense of patriotic duty and a respect for the Rule of Law.

Covid-19 cases are steadily decreasing across all nine provinces in the country, and every adult South African has by now had ample opportunity to get vaccinated.

Our country’s vaccine supply is greater than our demand and we have sufficient operational vaccination sites countrywide. The time has surely now come to place the livelihoods of the majority ahead of protecting the health of those who choose not to take the vaccine.

Furthermore, as we saw this past weekend at both the ANC and EFF election rallies, the lockdown regulations only still exist for those South Africans who willingly obey rules and respect laws.

The ruling party has seemingly already exempted itself from the very rules it enforces upon South Africans struggling to make ends meet.

The ANC rally in Tshwane, as well as the EFF’s rally in Johannesburg, flouted every single remaining lockdown regulation, from the 500 person limit to mask wearing and social distancing. Contrast this with the DA’s virtual Manifesto Launch, and it is clear that the rules only apply to some.

Earlier this month I asked the President, in a Parliamentary question, to commit to an end date for both the remaining lockdown measures and the State of Disaster. I also asked him what criteria would need to be met for these measures to come to an end. His answer was entirely unsatisfactory, stating simply that only once “sustainable sectoral regulatory measures were in place”, could the State of Disaster be lifted.

That is nothing but a deliberately open-ended deadline in order to extend, indefinitely, his government’s extraordinary, unconstitutional powers over our society.

If President Ramaphosa is indeed the “businessman president” that he is so often described as, he would know that no business can operate under such unpredictable conditions.

Above all else, businesses require certainty for the future if they are to remain viable and able to keep on their staff. Under the State of Disaster, the regulations that affect their operations can – and do, as we have already seen countless times – change at a whim.

It is not evident that President Ramaphosa and his government grasp the severity of our economic and jobs crisis. Nothing they do paints a picture of a government grappling with the reality of a 44% unemployment rate, or doing everything in its power to reignite an economy decimated by over a year and a half of lockdowns.

Our global peers are pulling away from us at an alarming rate in their post-Covid economic recovery, but our own government seems more concerned with not relinquishing the extra power handed to it under the State of Disaster than allowing citizens and businesses to rescue us from economic collapse.

For the sake of millions of South Africans who do not enjoy the luxury of a guaranteed government income regardless of which restrictions are implemented or extended, end the lockdown and the State of Disaster now, Mr. President.