Note to editors: The following remarks were made outside the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria by DA Mayoral Candidate for Tshwane, Solly Msimanga.
Fellow South Africans,
Behind the doors of the North Gauteng High Court today a battle is waging: the ANC in Tshwane is fighting to defend its corrupt smart-meter contract with PEU that has cost our City over R2 billion.
But the battle being fought is part of a larger war the ANC is waging to retain their ability to loot and plunder the City’s coffers.
The ANC in the City of Tshwane is preying on its residents, lining their pockets with money that should have gone to job creation and service delivery, and they do not want to stop.
Our City has been caught in an ANC-spun web of corruption from which it is struggling to escape. Over the past five years, we have seen the City turned into a well-oiled patronage machine that churns out jobs and tenders for those linked to the ANC.
But while the PEU contract makes headlines, to focus on it is to fail to see the forest for the trees; it is to fail to see that the ANC is a fundamentally corrupt organisation that has abandoned the service of the people in favour of the benefit of the few.
The culture of corruption within the ANC that saw the City of Tshwane enter into the PEU contract is the same culture of corruption that sees tenders awarded to ANC officials, housing and EPWP job opportunities exchanged for favours, and metro police officers solicit bribes.
It is the same culture of corruption that saw President Zuma spend R246 million of your money on his private residence at Nkandla.
And it is the same culture of corruption that saw ANC members in Parliament, including Zuma’s imposed mayoral candidate, Thoko Didiza, vote to let him off the hook and allow him to escape accountability for the theft of public funds.
It is this culture that residents of this City have to live with every day, and that prevents them from accessing the opportunities they deserve.
Replacing Mayor Ramokgopa with Thoko Didiza will not bring the change this City needs to move forward again, because they are cut from the same cloth.
As we stand here today, the corrupt President who imposed Didiza on Tshwane is in fact campaigning in the Capital on her behalf because they too are cut from the same cloth.
The people of Tshwane need change, but that change will not be found in the ANC and it will not be found in Didiza.
Didiza cannot be an agent of change because she is part of the ANC status quo.
The ANC government that Didiza will inherit in Tshwane is the same ANC government that Sputla left behind.
Thoko Didiza was proudly brought to you by Jacob Zuma, not to bring change to the Capital, but to entrench the culture of corruption that permeates every level of the ANC.
While the ANC knows this to be true, they would rather that the people of Tshwane did not.
Last week the DA erected a billboard not far from here to remind voters who sent Thoko Didiza to Tshwane – Jacob Zuma.
The ANC is so ashamed of this fact that they threatened to burn down the building if the billboard was not removed.
But we will not remove our billboard because the people of Tshwane deserve to know what they are voting for – more of the same ANC lies, corruption and broken promises.
Fellow South Africans,
The people of Tshwane will only find the change they deserve in an honest and responsive DA government that will stop corruption, deliver better services and create jobs.
While the ANC has spent the past five years presiding over the decline of the Capital, DA governments across South Africa have been making progress in improving the lives of ordinary South Africans.
The DA’s commitment to corruption-free government that delivers better services and creates jobs is why we can lay claim to governing 9 of the 10 best run municipalities in South Africa.
This is the DA difference; this is the change the DA wants to bring to Tshwane in order to see if move forward again.
On August 3 together we can bring change to Tshwane.
Media enquiries:
Motheo Mtimkulu
Media Manager: Tshwane Mayoral Campaign
083 728 0554
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