ANC lacks the vision to fix joblessness, e-tolls and housing crises
Madam Speaker:
On behalf of the Democratic Alliance, I would like to thank the Honourable Premier for delivering the State of the Province Address on Monday. That he can do so is a tribute to the fibre and strength of Gauteng’s democracy.
We are approaching the 20th anniversary of the adoption of our inspirational human-rights constitution. We remember that the great work of the Constitutional Assembly took place in this City.
Its adoption as a living document- which shines a light today – is a celebration of country, not party.
I am proud of the role my Party played in co-drafting with the other parties’ represented here our liberal democratic constitution based on non-racialism, equality and tolerance.
Our daily politics may be divided, but we share many of the same basic principles.
The presence of us all today testifies to the fact that the province is strong.
However, the state that serves the province is weak.
Gauteng – like South Africa – is suffering a major crisis of leadership.
In these challenging times, we wanted the Premier on Monday to give the province direction to overcome despair. Yet he has failed to match the prestige of his office with a sense of direction.
The Honourable Premier dutifully off ticked his statutory responsibility on his notepad, but his speech lacked leadership and vision.
In fact, it sounded like last year’s Address repackaged.
The Premier could have boldly set out actions steps to fix the province’s economy, e-tolls, and housing crises. Instead, he offered a reheated version of last year’s broken promises, knitted together with platitudes and processes.
We all know that the biggest tragedy of our time is unemployment. The people of this province is crying out for action. The premier’s address failed to speak to the many people – especially young black people – who are trapped in long-term unemployment.
This administration’s lack of leadership is causing havoc on the frontline of Gauteng’s economy – where real people live outside the bubble of politics and government.
The premier might recall that his not so honourable friend, President Zuma, promised five million new jobs by 2020. But joblessness has risen every year that the President has been in office. The economy now has 8, 3 million people jobless.
Let’s zoom in.
Gauteng is the economic heartland of South Africa, constituting just over 34% of the country’s GDP.
But there are over two million people who are out of work in Gauteng. This means that over 30% of the provinces labour force cannot find work or have given up looking for work.
Does the Honourable Premier appreciate the ‘opportunity cost’ as well as the human tragedy of having so many people out of work? Does he care for them?
Madam Speaker: A vote for the ANC in this year’s local government elections is a vote for more unemployment.
The DA is working hard to win Gauteng to get the province back to work.
For there is a town of hope that shines brightest on Gauteng’s map. A place where good governance runs like a river, and social justice like a never failing stream.
Can honourable members imagine a future where the DA has the opportunity to replicate the success of Midvaal municipality across the province?
Why does Midvaal stand tall as the best governed municipality in Gauteng?
Why is Midvaal rated as offering the highest quality of life in Gauteng?
Why is Midvaal ranked first in Gauteng for responding to the needs of the poor, and providing basic services?
Above all, why does Midvaal boast an unemployment rate far lower than the rest of the province?
What is so special about this place where new start-ups and factories are springing to life, sharing prosperity with the many?
Madam Speaker: the answer is that while the ANC talks about a better life for all, the DA in office delivers the better life for all promised in the constitution.
Not only does the Premier not have a vision to get Gauteng working, the ANC throws multiple obstacles in his way.
Let’s take the e-toll crisis.
The DA advocates a ring-fenced fuel levy to pay for the e-tolls.
Yet the “new dispensation” brokered between the Premier and the Deputy-President, Mr Cyril Ramaphosa, last year was anything but new.
Mirroring the technique of the Premier’s repackaged speech, the cost stayed the same taking inflation into account.
It was just reconfigured to make it appear that motorists were paying less.
More bad news for Gauteng’s battered motorists’ and families is on the way in 2016.
SANRAL are increasing the cost of tolls by 5% at the end of February, which is almost at the same rate as the province’s headline inflation prediction.
Simply put, motorists’ hardship is set to deepen in 2016 as the cost of living spirals.
On Monday, the Premier said that he had listened to people across the province highlighting their opposition to the e-toll system.
The DA agreed when he said that people do not want to embark on a civil disobedience campaign for the sake of it. Because the people of Gauteng are law abiding and good citizens.
But what is the point of listening, Mr Premier, if you do not act?
The fact is that e-tolls are untenable and morally wrong.
While our revenue crust ever diminishes, a huge slice of the collection fees heads overseas.
More fundamentally, people cannot afford to pay e-tolls due to apartheid spatial planning.
If the Premier went online and looked at a Google map of Gauteng, he would see a striking picture of inequality and a lop-sided economy.
A blaze of light and colour in the centre shows that we’ve not made enough progress to build a new and inclusive economy for all.
The Premier would, in an instant, see that poor people who travel from the outskirts of the province to the centres of economic activity are the hardest hit.
The inherent cruelty of e-tolls, Madam Speaker, is that they strengthen and deepen apartheid’s spatial scars.
They are emblematic of the ‘Great Unwinding’ of our society that is taking place under President Zuma.
E-tolls stunts Gauteng’s progress to reshape the composition of the economy, and end the division between the few “insiders” and the many “outsiders.”
The Premier said that he would once again look into the cost implications of e-tolls.
If he cannot give a timeline and an approximate figure of what he considers to be fair in his Reply, then his words remains hollow.
When elected, the DA will immediately scrap e-tolls.
Madam Speaker:
The province’s housing crisis is as symbolic as e-tolls of the ANC’s failure to make Gauteng a fair place to live for those who call it ‘home.’
The DA acknowledges the Premier’s candour that housing delivery in Gauteng falls far short of what is required.
The Premier will also know that the City of Johannesburg disregarded a Constitutional Court declaration that the city’s housing policy is unconstitutional.
This means that the constitutional mandated co-operation between the provincial and metro spheres of government in Gauteng has broken down.
The DA saluted Nelson Mandela’s government housebuilding programme in the first decade of democracy, which gave expression to the people’s constitutional right to shelter.
But that progress has now stalled.
Today, not enough units are being built, and we are not keeping pace with the province’s rapid population growth.
Nor has the province made the visionary shift that the DA-led Western Cape has done to make housing a driver of fairness, inclusion, and reconciliation.
Last week, Premier Helen Zille announced a multimillion-rand construction project of a mixed-use neighbourhood, which will contribute towards addressing Cape Town’s spatial legacies of apartheid.
To make Gauteng a fair province where every person is proud to call ‘home’, we need mixed housing for people of all backgrounds and incomes.
RDP housing has not been fast-tracked as promised. And when sites are identified, they are not truly breaking the back of apartheid spatial planning.
And most of the new “mega cities” are only at the ribbon-cutting phase. Spades have not yet turned soil.
The DA however welcomes the fact that these projects are public private partnerships.
South Africa needs investor confidence and investment if we are to have the means to redress the past in economic terms.
The administration’s DA-lite approach to PPPs is, of course, completely out of kilter with the national ANC.
So I don’t want to make the Premier’s job any more difficult than it already is. But it is hard not to draw the conclusion that he is being constrained from doing what is right by Luthuli House.
We note that the honourable Mashatile has made a cameo comeback as the Co-operative Governance, Traditional Affairs and Housing MEC. He looks happy to be back.
Some say that this is an election gimmick, while the corridor gossip I hear is that it was done to solidify the ANC in Gauteng’s position against President Zuma.
Either way, he outranks the Premier in the ANC’s provincial structure. The fear must be that the battle for the soul of the ANC is overtaking the battle to provide service delivery in Gauteng.
Madam Speaker:
Gauteng’s success will rise or fall on infrastructure development, and our ability to switch the lights on, and get goods to markets.
Once again, the Premier speaks like the DA when he says that the failure to pay suppliers timeously strangles businesses who work for government.
70% compliance with the payment of suppliers with 30 days in massive departments like Health, Infrastructure and Education effectively bankrupts start-ups and those emerging from the township economy.
The eGovernance department will help ensure compliance, but it will not have the power to switch the lights on or pre-empt cyber-attacks.
None of the additional power generation strategies that the Premier promised in 2015 have materialised.
Last year, the DA asked if there was a provincial disaster plan in the event of the electricity grid being compromised – or being shut down by hackers, which happened last month in the Ukraine.
The administration claimed that these things are done ‘on a need to mobilise basis’, with the resources available.
In other words, there is no official back up plan.
When it comes to electricity, we are all truly in this together. Without electricity, people on the roads are endangered. Transport creaks to a stop, and shop shelves lay empty. Patients in hospital risk death and disease. Our elderly and children are especially vulnerable.
The Premier must put an additional power strategy in place, just like the Western Cape has done.
Madam Speaker:
There is a simple and animating reason why the DA is marching towards power in Gauteng: We exercise power on behalf of citizens, and we never let power use us.
We are marching towards power in Johannesburg and Tshwane because we have a vision to turn back the legacy of apartheid; to build an open and inclusive economy.
The time is fast running out for the Honourable Premier to use the power of his office to fix Gauteng’s joblessness, e-tolls and housing crises.
For the sake of Gauteng, we can only hope that he can break out of the strait-jacket of President Zuma’s failed leadership.