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Transport and Public Works MEC Robin Carlisle accused the ANC of looting the provinces assets. Photo: Candice Chaplin

The ANC used the debate on Premier Helen Zille’s State of the Province address to tear into the DA and its policies as members of both parties accused each other of racism.

Attacking the theme of Zille’s opening address, ANC caucus leader Lynne Brown said that “Better Together” was contrary to the actions of the DA in government.

In her speech last week Zille highlighted her government’s achievements and future plans including:

l The establishment of an Economic Development Partnership on April 1.

l Plans to have each household in Khayelitsha and Mitchells Plain connected to broadband internet by 2014.

l Rigorously embracing an oversight role for the police through the Western Cape Community Safety Bill.

ANC caucus leader Lynne Brown attacked the DAs racist attitude. Photo: Candice Chaplin

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But Brown cited the closure of the Provincial Development Council, Zille’s twitter spats with singer Simphiwe Dana, and the police’s attitude towards protesters in Hangberg, Makhaza and Rondebosch Common as a true portrayal of the DA’s attitude to the lesser privileged.

And instead of transforming the province’s historic inequalities, Brown accused Zille and her government of maintaining the status quo.

“Access to power and the economy should still only be left in the hands of big, white business, at the exclusion of blacks and coloured people,” said Brown.

The DA government had stated that it would focus on creating jobs in established businesses.

In his response Health MEC Theuns Botha, the Leader of Government Business, said the DA had inherited “a fragmented, divided government” when it took over from the ANC in 2009.

“Now we see a slow integration of programmes resulting in less fragmentation, improved service delivery and less duplication and triplication of financial and human resources. The transversal management system proves – we are indeed Better Together,” said Botha.

Using the example of Limpopo, Botha said financial mismanagement was only uncovered due to internal strife within the party and that there were more dysfunctional departments in other provinces.

Responding to comments and asides from the opposition benches, Botha said that despite the Western Cape being “a horrible” place, according to members of the ANC many people still came to live in the province.

This prompted the DA’s Bokkie Geyer to heckle Brown, calling her “racist”.

Brown responded: “Stop calling me racist. We fought racism during apartheid and we’ll continue to fight it (in the present day)”.

The ANC benches responded with howls of derision as Botha claimed the DA government did not deploy its “cadres” into government or practise patronage.

DA member of the National Council of Provinces Michael de Villiers caused a chuckle when he claimed the ANC was being ridden by “Satan like a wildhorse” due to corruption in provinces governed by the party. Public Works and Transport MEC Robin Carlisle said the “racist” policies meant that his young daughter could not become a doctor, join the diplomatic corps or join Woolworths as a cashier due to race quotas.

Later he accused the previous ANC government of looting the province’s assets, saying: “They stole everything that couldn’t be bolted down.”

Carlisle said instead of supporting the poor, the ANC government had built the Gautrain for the rich, along with other projects for those already rich.

quinton.mtyala@inl.co.za - Cape Times