Minister Van Rooyen must urgently intervene in the water and electricity cuts

With the Inter-Ministerial Committee (IMC) on water and electricity due to table its full report on findings and recommendations into the 30 defaulting municipalities today, the DA sincerely doubts that they will be able to do so.
The DA will therefore write to the Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (and Chairperson of the IMC), Des van Rooyen, to request that he commits to intervening in the water and electricity cuts to defaulting municipalities by no later than Friday next week.
The DA will further seek assurance from Minister van Rooyen that there will be no water and electricity cuts, until such time as the findings and recommendations of the full report have been made, and bold remedial action taken.
It is unfair that innocent citizens, who pay their municipal bills every month, be subjected to such harsh measures as a result of the failure of their municipalities.
With regards to the water debt, 25 municipalities have been in contact with the Department of Water and Sanitation. The remaining 5 face possible water throttling. These include: Msukaligwa Local Municipality; Madibeng Local Municipality; Maluti A Phofung Local Municipality; Matjabeng Local Municipality; and Ngaka Modiri Molema Local Municipality.
In terms of the electricity debt, the Thaba Chweu Municipality in Mpumalanga and Walter Sisulu Municipality in the Eastern Cape are currently experiencing interruptions. Interruptions at Mbombela have been averted as they have made payment arrangements with the Department of Water and Sanitation. The  Emalahleni Municipality matter is now before the High Court in Pretoria, and is likely only to be heard early in the New Year. A number of other municipalities remain at risk of throttling if their debt to the electricity utility is not adequately addressed.
With December currently upon us, it is disheartening to see that residents and businesses could potentially face a dark and water-deprived festive season.
The dire situation of these defaulting municipalities points towards a lack of political will and effective leadership in the ANC to truly govern in the best interests of South African citizens.
The governing party is clearly incapable of fixing the systemic failures over which it has presided and in fact worsened. It has failed to properly manage the assets of the nation.
The DA expects a swift and detailed response from Minister van Rooyen, by no later than Friday next week, committing to intervening in the water and electricity cuts.

We cannot and will not stop fighting for our mothers, sisters and children

The following speech was delivered in Parliament today by the DA’s Shadow Minister of Social Development, Bridget Masango MP, during the debate on violence against women and children.
Chairperson,
The atrocious abuse of women and children has been covered widely and deeply, with staggering statistics and anecdotes of untold brutality hogging headlines as the country tries to come to terms with this scourge.  Some cases have even secured slots in court rolls and perpetrators having their days in court.  This is showing that something is done, although it is way too late for the victims, most of whom lose their lives, and for families who have to pick up the pieces of their lives with the loss of their loved ones.
There are stories which never reach the media.  Stories whose impact on the lives of those close to these tragedies is unimaginable.  At the centre of these stories are women and children. Women because they lose their children and children because they lose their mothers.
During a march I attended in Temba, Hammanskraal, I came face to face with the picture of the trail of abuse.  On the programme was Doreen Khalo, a mother who lost her daughter in 2011.
Doreen had in her possession a worn out green plastic bag that contained the letter her daughter wrote before she died, a document with a case number and a letter from an authority absolving itself from the responsibility of bringing the perpetrator to book. The contents of this bag were not just ‘papers’, but they detailed a harrowing tale of a mother who had not only lost her child to senseless violence.
Doreen reached out to the police, but they failed her.  She reached out to the prosecuting authorities and again she was failed.  In her quest for justice, Doreen was failed by the very system that was meant to protect her, and indeed her daughter. She received no counselling, and was forced to bear the grief on her own.
The moment she started speaking, tears streamed down her face. She wanted to share her grief, anger and sadness with the marchers who had come to stand with her and others like her. Her pain and anguish permeated through the crowd and seemed to be as fresh as though she had lost her daughter yesterday.
Yet, in between the heart-wrenching sobs, Doreen’s strength and resilience as a mother shone through. “I will not stop fighting for my girl,” she exclaimed.
This is the message that needs to resonate with us and our nation today. We cannot, and will not, stop fighting for our mothers, sisters and children.
As the Democratic Alliance, we will not stop calling on government to take responsibility and implement its own plan of action to protect the lives of women and children.
What has happened to the government’s Integrated Programme of Action for Violence Against Women and Children (VAWC) which was developed by the Inter-Ministerial Committee?
Despite it being lauded from a policy perspective when it came to implementation, the plan was however criticised for not being costed.  How then could it be taken seriously without the necessary budget?  The fact that the country is still experiencing heightened levels of VAWC calls into question the government’s ability to perform one of its most fundamental functions: that is, to protect its citizens.
What then has gone wrong, Chairperson?  Are we continuing to put the lives of women and children at risk while we develop documents that are launched and never implemented?  Are we paying lip service at the expense of lives that are being lost on a daily basis?
As the DA, we will endeavour to empower the vulnerable and give voice to the voiceless.  Our vision for South Africa is one which seeks to build a society that values and expresses the humanity inherent in all women, men and children.

Zuma should recuse himself and let Parliament do its Job

Following the Constitutional Court ruling to extend the contract between the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) and Cash Paymaster Services (CPS), the DA calls on President Jacob Zuma and Minister Bathabile Dlamini to recuse themselves from the Inter-Ministerial Committee (IMC) on social security and let Parliament do its job and oversee the implementation of the new contract.
The Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng in the court proceedings suggested that Dlamini is inept to do her job, stating that her handling of the social grants debacle “can only be characterised as an absolute incompetence”.
Dlamini’s “incompetence” is a reflection of the state of our current government, and neither Dlamini nor the President can, therefore, be trusted with overseeing this new contract. In fact, Dlamini can no longer be trusted with running an entire governmental department and must be fired immediately.
President Zuma’s decision to establish and chair an ICM, which includes the “inept” Minister of Social Development, to oversee the implementation of this contract, is a clear conflict of interest.
This is in light of reports last week that Zuma’s special adviser, Michael Hulley, met with Minister Bathabile Dlamini and high-ranking CPS officials to discuss the extension of the CPS contract.
Bathabile Dlamini has clearly bungled the entire process of institutionalising the payment of social grants. So desperate was Dlamini to ensure the extension of the invalid contract.
The ICM should take a step back and allow Parliament to perform its job, in line with Constitutional Court ruling.
This is why the DA has already requested Parliament to act and called for an ad hoc committee to be established to investigate the role of the Minister in the creation of this crisis, the continuation of grant payments and the way forward in order to avoid any further crises to this vital lifeline.
The DA also believes that the Public Protector, Adv Busisiwe Mkhwebane, confirming the DA’s request to probe Dlamini, will shed light on the Minister’s involvement in this debacle.
The DA will continue the fight to ensure that those who were responsible for putting the livelihoods of 17 million vulnerable South Africans at risk are held to account.