Give us an end-date for all lockdowns and the State of Disaster

Please find attached soundbite by DA Leader, John Steenhuisen MP. 

The Democratic Alliance (DA) notes President Ramaphosa’s announcement of a move to Lockdown Level 2. And while we welcome this easing of restrictions, we call on him to go further and commit to an end date for all lockdown restrictions as well as the State of Disaster.

The only possible reason for any further restrictions would be to allow everyone over the age of 18 the chance to get vaccinated. And since the 18–35-year-old group have had access to the vaccine since 20 August, this deadline must now be well within our sight. At the very latest, this should happen by mid-November, which would give this age cohort a full 12 weeks to get both jabs.

This deadline needs to be announced now so that businesses affected by lockdown restrictions can plan accordingly. It is not something that can be decided and announced at the last minute, as this would put even more businesses and jobs in jeopardy. If business owners know that there will be no more restrictions and curfews on the 15th of November, they can try to make plans to bridge their business over the period until then.

If President Ramaphosa does not think this is what needs to happen, he must give his and his government’s reasons why not. South Africans have made extraordinary sacrifices in order to comply with restrictions and regulations that are seldom explained or justified. The president needs to take citizens into his confidence and let them know precisely why these sacrifices must continue.

Specifically, he must set out the criteria his cabinet requires to be met for the State of Disaster to be lifted so that everyone can know whether these are rational and fair decisions. I asked him this very question – whether there are specific conditions which must be satisfied before the State of Disaster can be lifted and, if so, what they are – almost four weeks ago on 17 August in a written parliamentary question and I am yet to receive his reply.

That is not good enough, particularly when government’s decisions around lockdowns and economic restrictions already have so little credibility. It is also not good enough for the president to say “as soon as everyone has been vaccinated” when speaking of our return to normality, as we will never get to a point where everyone has had the jab.

Furthermore, until such time as all restrictions are finally lifted, it is crucial that we start applying a regional model for these restrictions based on the healthcare capacity of the region. Infection trends and vaccination rates differ greatly across different parts of the country and there is no single, neat wave that applies to the entire country, or even entire provinces.

Coupled with this, some areas have sufficient hospital capacity to no longer warrant restrictions. It is extremely selfish to subject South Africans to more unnecessary economic hardship when the local conditions do not justify this.

Citizens cannot be held to ransom by the whims of a group of people obsessed with central command and control of the economy – people who have never run a business themselves, never created a single job and whose own jobs and salaries are never at stake no matter how badly they get their Covid response wrong.

Local Government Elections are coming up in 2021! Visit check.da.org.za to check your voter registration status.

Letter: Ramaphosa, you need to explain why you appointed Arthur Fraser

Dear President Ramaphosa

The people of South Africa need to know whose president you are – theirs or the ANC’s? Because it is clear you cannot serve both. The objectives of the ANC as an organisation are incompatible with the wellbeing of our citizens and the stability of our country. The degree to which the law needs to be twisted – or, in many cases, entirely set aside – in order for the ANC’s objectives to be pursued will ultimately tear our democracy apart.

More specifically, you owe South Africans an explanation for your role in the appointment of Arthur Fraser as National Commissioner of Correctional Services back in 2018, and his subsequent granting of medical parole to former president Jacob Zuma last week, which happened against the recommendation of the Medical Parole Advisory Board and with your full knowledge and blessing.

It is also important to note that I speak here of your “role”, because you are normally criticised for the exact opposite – your lack of action. But this myth that you are a president who never knows anything, never does anything and therefore cannot be tied to anything needs to be put to bed once and for all. The deployment of Arthur Fraser and the unlawful granting of medical parole to Jacob Zuma has your personal fingerprints all over it. For once you’ve been a man of action.

You don’t need me to join the dots in this story because you wrote the whole thing. But, for the sake of the other readers of this letter, allow me to recap:

In 2018, near the start of your presidency, you took the executive decision to transfer Arthur Fraser from his position as Director General of the State Security Agency to the post of National Commissioner of Correctional Services. This particular cadre deployment, to use the ANC parlance, was entirely yours. For once you cannot hide behind the ANC’s favourite smokescreen: The Collective.

When you did this, you knew exactly what Fraser stood accused of. You knew the allegations of corruption and nepotism. You knew of the hundreds of millions of rands of State Security Agency money misappropriated on his watch. You knew of the Principal Agent Network – the parallel intelligence network set up by Fraser to serve the interests of Jacob Zuma. You knew that Fraser had shut down an internal investigation into him by revoking his Inspector General’s security clearance. You knew of the National Intelligence Agency’s forensic investigation into Fraser and others which found that criminal offences had been committed.

And still you deployed him to serve as the prisons boss.

The report by the Mufamadi High-Level Review Panel into the criminality at the State Security Agency would confirm to you all these allegations against Arthur Fraser, as well as others like David Mahlobo whom you also chose to redeploy rather than fire. When the DA challenged Fraser’s clearly irrational transfer to Correctional Services, your answering affidavit read like a fawning letter of reference for Fraser. This from a president who can’t stop vowing to clean up his government and the state.

Fast-forward three years, and it has become clear why Arthur Fraser was the perfect cadre for this deployment. Having already served Zuma and the ANC at the expense of his country in his previous role as spy boss, he would now be called upon to do it again. He would be expected to disregard the rules by vetoing the Medical Parole Advisory Board’s finding that Zuma should not be eligible for medical parole, and he would do this knowing upfront that you were informed and that you gave this decision your blessing.

We also know that you personally welcomed Zuma’s release from prison, despite his sentence being a legitimate outcome of our court system, and despite the fact that you knew his medical parole was a complete sham. In other words you welcomed the setting aside of the law for the benefit of the ANC.

And that’s really what this is all about. The ANC is very clearly in trouble on many fronts. But particularly in KwaZulu-Natal heading into elections with Zuma behind bars. And it is precisely for this kind of scenario that compromised, corrupt, unethical – but politically loyal – cadres are deployed to key positions across the state. This is precisely why you need to “control all levers of power”, to borrow the ANC’s own argument for cadre deployment from your 1997 Mahikeng conference.

Arthur Fraser is a textbook example of ANC cadre deployment – how it works and why it should be banished forever.

You recently sat in the witness stand at the Zondo Commission and vacillated between claiming you feel bad for all your government’s failures that were being laid bare, and staunchly defending the destructive practice of deploying ANC cadres to every part of the state. Even begging Judge Zondo not to take your cadre deployment away.

I understand the difficult position you’re in. I imagine it’s not easy playing these two roles at once – trying to come across as a remorseful and introspective president who serves the people and vows to do better, and being the leader of a party that cannot survive without the criminal capture of the state and has to fight for the very mechanism that makes this state capture possible.

That is why I ask you: Which of the two is more important to you? Would you rather serve your party or would you rather serve your country, as you raised your hand and swore to do when you took your oath of office?

You have to choose one because they are mutually exclusive, and South Africans need to know where you stand.

Yours sincerely,

John Steenhuisen
Leader, Democratic Alliance

Politiek opwindend met verswakte verdeelde ANC

Hierdie opiniestuk deur DA MP Cilliers Brink verskyn oorspronklik op Netwerk24 op 8 September 2021.

Verlede week se uitspraak van die konstitusionele hof het soos ’n bom in die ANC se gesig ontplof. Dis nog te vroeg om te sê, maar die skade is dalk onherstelbaar.

In die laaste munisipale verkiesing in 2016 het die DA die ANC verbygesteek in Tshwane en Nelson Mandelabaai, en die ANC tot onder 50% gedruk in Johannesburg en Ekurhuleni.

Maar in 2021 kan die ANC, by verstek, wyke en hele munisipaliteite verloor omdat die party nie genoeg kandidate benoem het nie.

Dit sal afhang van die vertolking van die konstitusionele hof se uitspraak, veral die vraag of die ANC toegelaat sal word om sy kandidatelyste aan te vul.

Hoe dit ook al sy, die ANC is só deurmekaar en verdeeld dat hy kwalik sy getrouste kiesers kan begeester om in groot getalle te gaan stem.

Dit maak die politiek baie opwindend.

En so sien die Demokratiese Alliansie (DA) ’n kans om ons winste van 2016 te konsolideer en 50% plus een te kry in verskeie voormalige ANC-rade.

Maar opposisiekiesers moenie te gerus raak nie. Die ANC is verswak, maar nog nie verslaan nie. Die ANC het steeds sy tentakels in die meeste staatsinstellings en staatskaste.

Kaders en comrades word beloon met poste en tenders. Arm kiesers word óf omgekoop met kospakkies óf afgepers met die afsny van welsynstoelaes.

En dan is daar oorgenoeg kommentators en beriggewers wat meer belangstel in die splinter in die DA se oog as die balk in die ANC se oog.

Onbekwaam vang sy baas

Ondanks sy klomp voordele kon die ANC nie volledige kandidatelyste opstel en betyds indien vir vanjaar se munisipale verkiesing nie.

Die probleem het egter vroeër begin. Nog voor die derde vlaag van Covid-19 en die KZN-onluste kon die ANC nie ’n kiesersregistrasieveldtog van stapel stuur nie.

Terwyl die sukses van enige politieke party tot ’n groot mate afhang van hoeveel van sy ondersteuners hy by die stembus kan kry, het ’n mens skaars ’n ANC-plakkaat gesien wat registrasie aanmoedig.

En in ’n stadium het ANC-leiers besef dat dit hulle nie sal pas vir Suid-Afrikaners om vanjaar te stem nie.

Covid-19 was die verskoning, nie die rede nie. Soos gewoonlik was daar oorgenoeg nuttige idiote wat saamgesing het in die ANC-koor.

Die ANC het dus gereken op die krag van sy tentakels. Die grondwet sou gebuig word om die ANC te pas.

Die Verkiesingskommissie (nee, nie “onafhanklik” nie) was inskiklik. Maar die grondwetlike hof was nie.

En selfs al is daar ’n skuiwergat in die uitspraak wat die ANC sal toelaat om sy kandidatelyste aan te vul, sal die poespas binne die ANC die party steeds stemme kos.

Maar die ANC het twee baie goeie vriende in hierdie verkiesing wat hom dalk net genoeg hulp sal verleen om sy magsposisie in baie dorpe en stede te behou.

Op moedverloor se vlakte

Eerstens hoop die ANC dat opposisiekiesers nie sal stem nie omdat hulle reeds ANC-oormag aanvaar het, of gewoon nie meer glo in die moontlikheid van verandering by die stembus nie.

In plekke waar die DA in 2016 nie kon wen nie of op onbetroubare koalisies moes steun, hoop die ANC dat opposisie-kiesers moed verloor het.

“Die ANC sal altyd wen”, en “niks sal verander nie” is baiemaal selfvervullende profesieë, veral in munisipaliteite waar die meerderheid na enige kant toe kan swaai soos Potchefstroom (JB Marks), Krugersdorp (Mogale City) en Sasolburg (Metsimaholo).

Spits ook jou ore vir stellings soos “alle politieke partye is dieselfde”, veral as dit op SABC-radiostasies gemaak word. Dis ANC-verskansingspropaganda.

Versplintering

Tweedens sal die ANC reken op die versplintering van die opposisiestem. Hoe meer mededingers die ANC het, hoe minder hoef die party hom oor elk van hulle te bekommer.

’n Scenario waar Afrikaanse kiesers, Engelse kiesers, bruin kiesers, Christen-kiesers en Moslem-kiesers elk vir ’n afsonderlike party stem, is presies wat die ANC wil hê.

Die meeste randpartye groei ten koste van die DA, nie die ANC nie. In baie gevalle is hulle ook reeds ANC-koalisievennote.

Good se leier dien in pres. Cyril Ramaphosa se kabinet. Die Patriotic Alliance en Al Jama-ah hou die ANC aan bewind in Johannesburg.

Dieselfde rol word in Ekurhuleni deur Izak Berg se Independent Ratepayers Association (IRASA) gespeel. Vir sy gedienstigheid is Berg met ’n komiteevoorsitterskap beloon. Daar sal baie Berge in hierdie verkiesing wees.

Wie bly dan oor in die townships?

Vanuit die ANC se oogpunt het die versplintering van die opposisiestem egter ’n onbedoelde gevolg: net die EFF bly oor om ANC-stemme in die townships op te raap.

Die EFF is meer van ’n ANC-faksie as ’n opregte opposisie-party, en as die randpartye die DA in sy eie wyke besig hou, is dit die EFF wat in groot getalle aan swart kiesers se deure gaan klop.

Maar dit hoef nie so te wees nie. Die beste reaksie op ’n verswakte ANC is ’n versterkte DA wat opposisiekiesers kan verenig en wen.

Ready to campaign, ready to govern.

The 2021 Local Government Elections are shaping up to be a historic turning point for South Africa. The stars are aligned for many municipalities across the country to finally free themselves from the ANC’s destructive grip and to start seeing progress under DA governments or DA-led coalitions.

The DA is ready to campaign and ready to govern. For the first time ever, we have registered a candidate in every single ward in the country. Our lists are submitted, our manifesto is written, our posters are printed, and we are ready to bring one powerful message to every corner of South Africa: the DA gets things done.

We have truckloads of evidence to support our claim that we are the only party in South Africa with a track record of delivery in government. Over the next seven weeks, we will tell the stories of our many governing successes, so that come election day, no one will be in any doubt as to which party they can rely on to get things done for them.

In recent newsletters, I have set out our governing successes in Midvaal, Kouga and Nelson Mandela Bay, and how the DA does more for young people than any other party. And we have many more good stories to tell, especially where the DA has had a full mandate to govern.

Voters can be sure that we will not be making the mistake again of going into coalition or governing arrangements with parties that do not share our four non-negotiable governing principles: commitment to the rule of law, nonracialism, a social market economy, and a capable state that delivers to all.

The DA is feeling extremely upbeat, and this at a time when the ANC’s cancerous policy of cadre deployment is destroying the party itself. It has turned their electoral process into an intense and protracted battle for who gets to steal rather than who gets to serve, leading to them missing the IEC’s deadline to register candidates in 93 of South Africa’s 257 municipalities.

The DA’s state of readiness and the ANC’s state of turmoil mean that this election, for the first time since 1994, is wide open, with the real prospect of widespread change in local governments from ANC to DA.

This will bring real material improvements to many people’s lives and some relief at this time of great suffering. It will also give the DA a golden opportunity to earn the trust of people in provinces other than just the Western Cape ahead of the 2024 general election, when South Africa needs the ANC swept from power if the country is to stop its downward hurtle towards a captured and failed state while there is still something left to save.

The Constitutional Court this week dismissed the IEC’s application to postpone the elections, ruling they must be held within the constitutionally mandated period, which is on or before 1 November 2021.

This is an important judgement and a great victory for democracy, for the Constitution, and for the DA, which fought hard in court for this outcome. It sets an invaluable precedent for upholding voters’ rights, no matter how inconvenient for the ruling party and the IEC.

Zambia’s recent successful election shows that campaigning and voting can happen safely if we follow all the precautions that we’ve become accustomed to taking, such as wearing masks, sanitizing, and social distancing.

But don’t be fooled. The real reason for the IEC’s application to delay the election had little to do with the pandemic and much to do with the fact that the ANC needs more time to get its house in order. Specifically, it needed the candidate registration process to be re-opened.

Yesterday, IEC chairperson Glen Mashinini, a Zuma appointee and ANC acolyte, announced that the candidate registration process will reopen on 20 September. This is purely for the ANC’s sake and is an opportunity that has never been granted before to other parties requiring a second chance, including the IFP and the NFP in 2011 and 2016 respectively.

The DA will oppose this plan in court. There simply cannot be one set of rules for the ANC and another for the rest of the country. Some people have argued that giving the ANC a second chance will be good for democracy. Yet one set of rules for everyone is the very essence of democracy, while ANC capture of democratic institutions to subvert their purpose from serving people to serving the ANC is the very antithesis of democracy.

As are the ANC’s attempts to capture and influence the judiciary. We know this has happened. ANC-deployed Judge John Hlophe is a case in point. But thanks to Dr Sydney Mufamadi’s testimony at the Zondo Commission in January, we now also know about the intelligence slush fund that was used for influencing judges, amongst other purposes. And we know from the ANC’s deployment committee minutes, subpoenaed by the Zondo Commission at the DA’s request, that the committee influenced the appointment of judges during a meeting in March 2019.

It is therefore possible that the ANC’s sudden withdrawal of its court action to have the candidate registration process reopened was due to a tip-off by a judge. Clearly, the ANC must have believed there was an easier route, namely that the election date could be reproclaimed and potentially shifted out by up to 5 days, giving the ANC-captured IEC a smokescreen to reopen the process.

Deploying loyal cadres to the IEC and the judiciary to serve the ANC by granting them special favours, is no different from deploying loyal cadres to the Department of Correctional Services to serve the ANC by placing compromised ANC cadres such as Jacob Zuma on medical parole, to ease factional tensions in the party. The DA is fighting this move, too.

The DA has fought cadre deployment and its implications for two decades, and we will continue fighting it with every mechanism at our disposal, because it is the root of South Africa’s rot.

But even if the ANC and IEC succeed in their bid to give the ANC another chance to register its candidates, the ANC’s finances and systems are in a mess and this will reflect in the election result just as will the DA’s state of readiness.

The DA is ready to assist all our voters and potential voters to register during the registration weekend which has now been announced for 18-19 September. We are ready to hang our posters and launch our manifesto. We are ready to tell our good stories. Most of all, we are ready to get things done for the people of South Africa.

Western Cape moves one step closer to energy independence following launch of Energy Resilience Fund

The DA welcomes the Western Cape Provincial Government’s launch of the Municipal Energy Resilience Fund. The fund moves the province’s Municipal Energy Resilience (MER) Initiative one step closer to ensure an energy secure future for the Western Cape.

The launch of the fund last week by Western Cape Minister of Finance and Economic Opportunities, David Maynier, will see R13 million made available to qualifying municipalities for  preparatory work, such as Electricity Master Plans and Cost of Supply Studies, to get renewable energy projects off the ground.

The ultimate goal of these projects is to protect Western Cape residents and businesses from Eskom’s rolling blackouts by helping municipalities build energy security through renewable energy sources.

The MER Initiative has already gotten off to a successful start after the request for information (RFI) period solicited information from more than 100 potential energy generation projects.

The DA congratulates the Western Cape Provincial Government and Minister Maynier on highlighting that where the DA governs, progress is being made towards freeing residents from Eskom’s monopoly over electricity generation.

Eskom has for years failed to produce enough electricity to meet the demands of its consumers, both households and businesses. The real cost of Eskom’s mismanagement is evident in the increases in electricity tariffs experienced by South Africans across the country.

Don’t think the judiciary can’t be captured

Helen Zille responds to the media push back against her comments on the ANC and the ConCourt.

“All Truth passes through three phases, first it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, third it is accepted as being self-evident.”

This profound insight comes from German philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer, and is as true today as it was in the 19th Century.

South Africa is a living testament to this insight.

An example: When the DA first raised the risks of ANC cadre deployment more than 20 years ago, and pointed to its inevitable trajectory from cronyism to corruption and finally the captured, criminal state, we were laughed out of court.

After all, it was the height of Mandelaphoria, and the great man himself had presented the cadre deployment proposals to the ANC’s Mahikeng conference in 1997, to (mostly) uncritical media acclaim.

Around 2016, two decades later, the media suddenly “discovered” state capture, and there has been a glut of reporting on it ever since, even though it is still poorly understood.

Most of them, to this day, erroneously think that state capture involves the Guptas “capturing” institutions of state. Not so. It is about the dominant faction of the ANC capturing nominally independent state institutions — from the National Prosecuting Authority, to the Police, the SABC, State Owned Enterprises, the Human Rights Commission etc — and bending them to the ANC’s will.

In recent days, I have resurrected a subject I have addressed repeatedly before — the ANC’s capture of the Judicial Service Commission, which has arguably the most crucial job in a constitutional democracy:- the nomination of senior advocates to serve as Judges, and to recommend senior Judges for appointment to the Appellate Division and the Constitutional Court.

My recent focus on this subject was prompted by the belated decision of the JSC (almost 20 years too late) to impeach Judge President of the Western Cape, John Hlophe, for “gross misconduct”. I wrote an analysis of the JSC’s profound failures in this recent article.

I myself served on the JSC during my tenure as Premier of the Western Cape — and saw it gradually degenerate into a cadre deployment arm of the ANC. More often than not, the ANC nominees and MPs arrived at these crucial meetings, with a “mandate”. They knew who to support, irrespective of the candidate’s track record. In sometimes became apparent that some ANC members of the JSC had not even read the preparatory papers before presuming to vote in support of aspirant Judges.

I wrote about that on several occasions too, including this article dated October 13, 2014.

No-one paid much attention at the time. The media was still at the “ridiculing” phase of Schopenhauer’s Truth sequence in relation to state capture.

The big problem in failing to spot these trends early enough, is that the rot accumulates silently, until suddenly, institutions crumble.

State capture happens, as they say, in two stages: First slowly, then quickly.

And, with the judiciary, the pace is quickening and becoming more visible — which is why suggestions to this effect are met with “violent opposition”, the second phase of Schopenhauer’s time series.

The interesting thing is that the ANC has never hidden its intentions of capturing the judiciary.

Way back in 1998, writing in the ANC mouthpiece Umrabulo, Joel Netshitenzhe described the movement’s aim “to extend the power of the national liberation movement over all levers of power: the army, the police, the bureaucracy, the intelligence services, the judiciary, parastatals and agencies such as regulatory bodies, the public broadcaster, the central bank and so on”.

There you have “state capture” in a nutshell. The ANC never hid its intentions. It is perhaps the only project the party has ever successfully undertaken. But, as I have learnt, if you even dare to insinuate that it may be succeeding, especially in relation to the judiciary, the woke media will more than fulfil Schopenhauer’s second-stage of “violent opposition”.

This, despite the fact that not too long ago, we heard before the Zondo Commission of Inquiry, that the ANC’s cadre deployment Committee discussed ANC deployees to the Judiciary (including, apparently, the Constitutional Court)!

Worse still, in his evidence before the Zondo Commission, former Minister Sydney Mufamadi, who had investigated the rot in the intelligence services, revealed that there was a secret State Security Agency Slush Fund, earmarked to buy-off judges.

That sensational revelation caused a mere ripple of concern, and a little red rash of reporting, when it should have been relentlessly pursued by the media, until they established what the money was used for, and if judges were paid off, who they were.

The crucial question also arises: why was Arthur Fraser, the alleged master-mind behind these “special projects”, not called to give evidence to the Zondo Commission and face cross-examination on the slush fund to buy-off judges?

While this earth-shattering revelation was allowed to die a gentle death, the woke media’s “violent opposition” was reserved for those who suggest that something may be rotting in the state of the judiciary.

Take the latest brouhaha over the ANC’s failure to meet the IEC deadline for the submission of its lists in 93 municipalities.

Claiming that the IEC’s technology and Covid 19 had thwarted them, the ANC lodged legal papers with the Electoral Court, seeking an order for the re-opening of the candidate nomination process.

Then inexplicably, within hours, the ANC withdrew its court appeal, without clarifying what had caused it to change its mind in the short space of time between the submission and the withdrawal.

The ANC merely said it would now wait for the Constitutional Court to rule on the IEC’s application to postpone the election to February 2022 — in which case the timetable will be changed and the registration period, both for candidates and voters, will re-open.

Die Burger, the only remaining readable Western Cape daily, ran a front page article the next day (1 September) speculating on the reasons why the ANC withdrew its appeal (in the absence of any credible explanation by the ANC itself) and quoted Professor Andre Duvenhage of the University of the Free State suggesting that the ANC must have received inside information that the IEC’s application to have the application postponed would succeed.

As the newspaper’s quote was confusing, I telephoned Professor Duvenhage myself, who unambiguously repeated this view to me. I also telephoned the journalist, Llewellyn Prince, who told me that the correct version of Professor Duvenhage’s quote had appeared in his original article, published by Netwerk24 and confirmed the Professor’s quote.

Armed with this background I posted a series of four numbered tweets summarising the situation:

1) Die Burger this morning doesn’t mince its words. In its headline it suggests that the ANC must have received inside information from the Constitutional Court, which led to the ANC withdrawing its case before the electoral court to re-open candidate registration.

2) The context is this. If the ConCourt enables the IEC to postpone the election, then it presses the “re-set” button and it issues a new timetable, which will enable the ANC to re-register its candidates. So the ANC would not have to get permission from the Elec Court.

3) The ANC’s withdrawal from the Electoral Court indicates that they have been tipped off that the IEC’s application to postpone the election was successful. If information is leaking from the Concourt to the ANC, it is nothing short of an Constitutional crisis.

4) If this is so, cadre deployment will have destroyed every institution, right up to the ConCourt, turning them into instruments of ANC power abuse, rather than protectors of the people against ANC power abuse. That is the crisis we are facing now. SAns must wake up.

Nothing in any of these tweets that had not been said before. But, the outrage manufacturers in the media went into overdrive.

I was more than a little bemused.

Why, I asked myself for the umpteenth time, don’t most of the media take the ANC’s stated intentions seriously until it is far too late?

The ANC has been entirely open about its plan to capture state institutions, including the judiciary, from the very start of our democracy.

Yet today, over 20 years later, if you dare suggest that the ANC may be succeeding in its quest to capture the judiciary, you risk howls of outrage from those self-same journalists who should have been exposing what has been going on for years, rather than excusing it.

Well, as they say, the truth will out, if not now, in the not too distant future. Then, tragically, we will reach Schopenhauer’s stage when the fulfilment of the ANC’s “state capture” strategy will all, very suddenly, be “self evident”.

Unless, of course, enough of us are prepared to do enough to stop it.

Which is why the DA (and I) will not hesitate to say what we believe to be true, and fight to set them right, whatever the consequences.

That is why we fight elections. And that is why voters, who once ridiculed the idea of voting DA, will suddenly come to the belated realisation that doing so should have been “self evident” all along.

Let’s continue to build Midvaal into the beacon of service delivery and good governance

Please see pictures of the event attached here, here, here, here.

Leadership of the Democratic Alliance, colleagues and residents, I am honoured to accept my party’s nomination to stand for Mayor of Midvaal Local Municipality.

I remember growing up in the streets of Meyerton, riding my bicycle as a young boy. I have watched our area grow from strength to strength under the strong leadership of the Democratic Alliance and my predecessors.

I am ready to build on the work that the DA has laid – of providing quality services to all of Midvaal’s residents.

I want to acknowledge and thank our outgoing Executive Mayor, Bongani Baloyi, and the administration for a stellar performance in Midvaal.

The municipality has been recognized as the best performing municipality in Gauteng and one of the top six in the country through its achievement of clean audits, excellent service delivery and commitment to good governance.

Service delivery excellence is the golden thread used to weave a tapestry of transparent, accountable, clean and good governance. The DA in Midvaal has brought accountability and worked hard to remove corruption.

While ANC-led municipalities across the country are marred by corruption and mismanagement, the DA has held on to its brand of good governance and service delivery.

As I accept my party’s nomination, I look forward to taking Midvaal to new heights while continuing to ensure exemplary governance.

I have gained invaluable experience through various positions within Midvaal ranging from being a ward councillor, Member of Mayoral Committee and Political Head. This has placed me in an opportune position to understand the holistic culture of Midvaal and the perseverance needed to keep the wheels of success turning.

I undertake to serve and lead Midvaal with integrity and pride. I undertake to make my family, the DA, residents and most importantly God, proud, as I journey down this path.

I would like to extend my condolences to those who have lost loved ones during this unprecedented global challenge we face caused by Covid-19 and wish a speedy recovery to those recovering from the virus.

This pandemic has forced us into a new normal, and, as public servants, we need to recognize the economic hardships that our residents are faced with. Hardships that pose a threat to not only the fiscal situation of the municipality but have had a severely negative impact on people’s livelihoods.

Ensuring financial stability while maintaining and expanding service delivery in this time is a daunting task, however, it is not insurmountable. Thinking out of the box, coupled with hard work and dedication will certainly make it possible.

The DA has already started with the groundwork to keep Midvaal DA. In the coming months, we will continue to engage with all communities to ensure that we gain support and continue to build on the good work we are already doing.

Democrats, I leave you with this quote from the former President of America, Barack Obama: “We need to internalize this idea of excellence. Not many folks spend a lot of time trying to be excellent. The future rewards those who press on. I don’t have time to feel sorry for myself. I don’t have time to complain. I’m going to press on”.

I thank you.

Geordin Hill-Lewis announces first campaign pledge: Let’s make Cape Town the easiest place to do business in Africa

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

Over the past week, I have visited businessowners and workers in communities across Cape Town. From informal traders at the Nonkqubela Link Centre in Khayelitsha to female entrepreneurs participating in the Women-in-Business program in Plumstead and the Furntech incubator in Nyanga that equips learners to open their own furniture making and upholstery businesses, it is clear that Capetonians across all communities want a government that gets more done to create thriving businesses and job opportunities in Cape Town.

That is why I am today announcing the first of my seven pledges as DA mayoral candidate is to make Cape Town the easiest place to do business in Africa. I will be announcing one pledge every week over the coming seven weeks.

We all know that Cape Town already does more than any other city to empower entrepreneurs. But in a country with an unemployment rate of nearly 35% and where four out of every five young people cannot find work, we must now do even more than ever before to protect Cape Town against the failing national government by attracting investors, empowering entrepreneurs, and getting Cape Town working like never before.

Given all the talent and resources at our disposal, we need to do much more to ensure that Cape Town overtakes cities like Nairobi and Kigali on the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Index. The Index indicates that it currently takes 88 days and thousands of Rands to obtain a construction permit, 37 days to have building plans approved, 14 days for a business owner to get a rates clearance certificate when registering property, and up to 97 days to establish a new electricity connection.

The DA will ensure that Cape Town becomes the most attractive investment destination on our continent by:

  • Relentlessly cutting red tape wherever it holds businesses back, including by making it easier and faster to obtain a construction permit, approve building plans, obtain a rates clearance certificate, register a business, establish a new electricity connection and comply with licencing requirements;
  • Creating a culture in the city administration of empowering and helping entrepreneurs rather than merely enforcing compliance;
  • Ending load shedding in Cape Town to ensure that every business has a reliable supply of electricity around the clock;
  • Doing the basics better so that every business owner gets quality basic services in exchange for their municipal rates;
  • Using every tool at our disposal to prevent destructive national government policies like expropriation without compensation from ever being implemented in Cape Town; and
  • Fighting for control over passenger rail so that workers and customers have access to reliable public transport to look for work, trade their goods and get to their jobs on time.

While the national government often treats entrepreneurs as a problem that needs to be dealt with, entrepreneurs are in fact the real heroes of our country because of the jobs they create. From the traders of Khayelitsha to the technology CEOs of the CBD and the craftsmen of Nyanga, the DA is determined to let every entrepreneur know that Cape Town welcomes them with open arms, and that this is the best city in Africa in which to start a business.

DA can get South Africa working

Dubbed last week by Bloomberg as the “highest in the world”, South Africa’s unemployment rate drives poverty and inequality in this country. At 34.4%, it is five times that of the world average, and double what it was in 1995 according to economist Mike Schüssler. If you include those who’ve given up looking for a job, that number goes up to a crippling 44.4%.

Tackling unemployment would be the obsessive focus of a DA national government just as it is already that of local DA governments and the DA-run Western Cape provincial government. We believe no decision should be taken by government without considering its effects on unemployment.

There is only one route to mass job creation and that is inclusive economic growth – economic growth that creates opportunities for all.

The DA’s approach to growing the economy can be summed up in four words – power to the people. Economic decision-making power should be decentralised to all the people of South Africa, because even the most brilliant and well-intended cabinet could never match the aggregated knowledge and incentives of sixty million people all making economic decisions in their own best interest, as expressed by free markets.

President Ramaphosa is going to update the nation on Friday on his administration’s latest plan to grow the economy. Our advice to him can also be summed up in four words – get out the way.

It is a great irony that the ANC cannot afford to pay its own employees at Luthuli House and aren’t organised enough to submit its local elections candidates list on time yet want to micromanage every aspect of South Africa’s economy.

When it comes to prosperity there is no need to reinvent the wheel. Experience the world over shows that economic freedom and prosperity go hand in hand. The Fraser Institute’s Economic Freedom of the World report concludes that “virtually without exception, these studies have found that countries with institutions and policies more consistent with economic freedom have higher investment rates, more rapid economic growth, higher income levels, and a more rapid reduction in poverty rates.”

Which isn’t to say there is no role for government in job creation. Quite the contrary. All three tiers of government – national, provincial and local – have a crucial role to play in creating the conditions that bring as many people as possible into the active economy.

Give plants water, soil, air and sunlight and the garden will grow. Give people affordable, reliable, quality water, electricity, education, health, transport, ICT, energy, safety, and a coherent regulatory regime and the economy will grow.

Governments don’t create jobs. Businesses create jobs. So here are the top ten steps a DA would take in national government, to make it easy and attractive for people to invest in businesses:

  1. Ensure reliable, affordable electricity by opening the energy market to independent producers and allow municipalities to buy directly from them.
  2. Level the playing field for small businesses by exempting them from all but the basic conditions of employment, including from wage bargaining council decisions to which they have not been party.
  3. Stand up to SADTU so that teachers can be properly trained and incentivized to deliver a quality basic education to SA’s labour force.
  4. Curb the public sector wage bill to bring down debt and release funds for spending on essential infrastructure such as ensuring bulk water supply.
  5. Sell or close failing state-owned companies to improve services to the public and bring down debt.
  6. Part-privatize rails and ports to bring down the costs of logistics.
  7. Bring down the cost of data by auctioning spectrum.
  8. Introduce an independent public service commission to ensure public appointments are based on ability to deliver to the public, to ensure performance-based remuneration, and to hold public servants accountable for lack of delivery.
  9. Devolve some power over rail and policing to competent metros to enable integrated local public transport systems and greater public safety.
  10. Decisively walk away from investment-repelling, corruption-abetting, control-centralizing policies such as EWC, NHI, asset prescription, BEE, and the mining charter.

The DA in national government would put the “inclusive” into “inclusive economic growth” by protecting against anti-competitive behaviour and by using tax revenues to open opportunities to more and more people, as per our Economic Justice policy. As employment and tax revenues grow, so will we be able to ensure a stronger and more sustainable social safety net/trampoline for the poor and vulnerable.

But since metro and municipal elections are imminent, this is where the DA can have the most immediate impact on job creation. DA mayoral candidate Geordin Hill-Lewis plans to make Cape Town the most business-friendly city on the continent. There can be no more pro-poor undertaking than that because there is nothing that poor South Africans need and want more than jobs.

Nowhere are the effects – and many of the causes – of unemployment more evident than in the embattled North West Province which, together with seven of its municipalities, has been placed under administration due to collapsed service delivery. I am touring it this week to see for myself and to share the DA’s approach to job creation at the local level.

Where the DA is in local government, we attract investment and job creation to the area by reliably delivering quality basic services – water, sanitation, electricity, roads, streetlights – that are fundamental operating requirements for businesses.

A state of local government report presented to Parliament this week shows that the vast majority of South Africa’s stable, well-run municipalities are in DA-run Western Cape. Which goes some way to explaining why the Western Cape’s unemployment level is 17 percentage points lower than the rest of South Africa.

In the upcoming local government elections, a vote for the DA will be a vote for the only party with a track record of getting things done to create jobs.

Opinion: ANC policies have created the world’s worst unemployment disaster

If this week’s headlines – that South Africa now has the highest unemployment rate in the world among 82 countries monitored by Bloomberg – does not act as a kick in the rear of this government and spur them into bold action on job-enabling reform, they have no business being in government. Then they should clear out and let a real government step in and fix their mess.

Officially, 34.4% of South Africans are without work. But when you include the “discouraged” job-seekers – the real long-term victims of this unemployment pandemic – that number shoots up to 44.4%. And when you look at the youth segment alone – defined here as below 24 years old – a staggering 74.8% cannot find jobs.

There is no spin that can begin to sugarcoat this disaster. No amount of blaming the pandemic, blaming the riots, blaming foreigners, blaming white monopoly capital, blaming the Zuma administration or blaming apartheid can explain why ours is not only one of the least pandemic-resilient economies in the world, but also one of the worst-performing economies even before anyone had heard of Covid-19.

There is also no reasonable explanation for why the so-called reformer president cannot get his supposed reform agenda out of the glacial gear it’s stuck in. Our continents will reunite in Gondwanaland and he will still be busy “consulting social partners” on what needs to be done.

Not that he needs any further consultation to know what to do. Every expert, every economist, every financial columnist has been shouting the answer at him since the day he stepped into office: Governments don’t create jobs, businesses create jobs. Become a partner to your job creators, stop treating them like the enemy, stop making it near impossible to get a new business off the ground and stop doing everything in your power to chase new investment away. Start weighing up every single policy and regulation by its likely impact on jobs and nothing else.

And this advice has not only been dispensed locally. Globally, more and more are joining the chorus, imploring the ANC to be less ANC-like, to step into the 21st century and to put what The Economist now calls “bad ANC economics” behind it. The very same Economist who you might remember came out to bat for the ANC in the build-up to the 2019 elections. But it seems they’ve had their Damascus moment and have, quite rightly, put the blame for our economic misery and jobs bloodbath squarely on disastrous ANC policy.

In a piece published in July titled “End of the line for ANC economics”, The Economist identifies, among others, the crony enrichment scheme disguised as Black Economic Empowerment, the central control of ports, rail and power generation, and inflexible labour laws that shut smaller players out as some of the policy failures that have had the greatest impact on our shrinking economy. They’re dead right, of course, but it really would have helped if they’d had this insight before endorsing the party in the last election.

Still, it’s better late than never, and it’s a message our government needs to hear over and over until it registers. We won’t make a dent in these unemployment numbers with mindless talk shops and consultations. We won’t make a dent by shuffling the same threadbare cabinet around in a dozen new configurations. And we certainly won’t make a dent by pursuing an economic worldview abandoned everywhere else three decades ago. What President Ramaphosa needs to do is step out of the Cold War era and into the shoes of the people directly impacted by his party’s deadbeat policies.

He needs to put himself in the shoes of the small business owner who cannot possibly comply with the wage agreements reached between government and big business and eventually has no choice but to first lay off staff and then close the business down. Or the small supplier trying to do business with the state but whose company eventually fails because government simply won’t pay invoices.

He needs to put himself in the shoes of the potential international investor who takes one look at the BEE scam, the mining charter, the threat to expropriate private property without compensation, the unreliable electricity supply and the inability of the state to protect businesses against lawlessness and looting, and says: no thanks, I’ll rather put my money elsewhere.

He needs to put himself in the shoes of any one of the roughly 12 million desperate, mostly young, job-seekers who have no future to look forward to because they are not only unemployed, but thanks to one of the world’s worst-performing education systems, also virtually unemployable.

If he’d walked just a few steps in their shoes, he’d see exactly where SADTU-controlled education has left a generation of children, and he would immediately make plans to limit the union’s toxic reach in schools. He would know that auctioning off spectrum to bring down data costs is an urgent requirement for keeping this generation connected, and he would know that most of them would happily be exempted from the minimum wage if it meant a job.

If he’d put himself in the shoes of any of the restaurant owners or liquor merchants wiped out by the past 18 months of on-off regulations, he would not have signed off on any of these damaging restrictions drafted and gazetted by people with no skin in the game and who’ve never had to go a day without a salary.

None of these things are a secret. None of these ideas are new or revolutionary. President Ramaphosa and his government have known for years that opening up the energy market and allowing independent power producers to sell directly to municipalities would boost electricity production and, along with it, our economy. They’ve known for years that our failed rail network and ports have dragged our economy down, and that these need to be at least part-privatised to work properly.

And they’ve known for decades that deploying useless but politically loyal cadres to key positions in the state is killing our country. But yet they persist with all these things, because that’s what it says in their little ideological playbook. That’s the party they are.

We need to start being honest about what the ANC is if we want a different outcome for our country. If the obvious solutions to this unemployment disaster – the things just about everyone has been calling for – are at odds with their sworn ideology, it is the ideology that needs to compromise, not the solutions. And if that can’t happen, then the government itself must make way for one that understands what it takes to grow the economy and create jobs.