Cape Town – Voters need to reject the corruption of the African National Congress and the chaos of the Economic Freedom Fighters and instead choose jobs, a growing economy, and a nation united and working towards a better future, Democratic Alliance leader Mmusi Maimane said on Saturday.
Speaking at the DA’s August 3 municipal elections iRally ye Nqubela (Keep making progress rally) in Khayelitsha in Cape Town, he said South Africa’s economy was in a very poor state, but it was nothing compared to the situation in Zimbabwe. There, the economy was in total meltdown. Zimbabwe was a good reminder of the choice facing voters in the election here.
“In South Africa, we have the ANC who for years has supported [Zimbabwean president Robert] Mugabe and helped him stay in power. And we have the EFF who not only supports Mugabe, but wants to recreate what Mugabe has done, here in South Africa. Mad, mad, mad!
“Or you can vote for the DA, the only party that has actually worked to create jobs in South Africa, and wants a prosperous, united future for this country. In this election, voters must reject the corruption of the ANC and the chaos of the EFF.
“We will never accept that for our country. We love this country, and we don’t want corruption and chaos. We want jobs, a growing economy, a nation united and working towards a better future.
“Corruption and chaos stop services from being rolled out. Corruption and chaos scare investors off. Corruption and chaos cost jobs,” Maimane said.
After 10 years of DA government, Cape Town was unrecognisable from the one the DA inherited from the ANC in 2006.
“This place was a mess when we took over. Infrastructure and maintenance projects stood abandoned. Posts weren’t filled. And not one single government department got a clean audit in the ANC’s last year here. The Cape Town you see today is a very different city to the Cape Town of 2006,” he said.
It offered its poor citizens the most generous package of free basic services of any metro in the country. It was building a world-class integrated transport system. It had hundreds of free Wi-Fi hotspots. It had new, state-of-the-art hospitals.
It was the only metro that respected public money. In the past financial year, the metros of Johannesburg, Tshwane, and Nelson Mandela Bay lost over R2.2-billion to corruption. In Cape Town, that figure was zero. But most importantly, it had the lowest unemployment figures of all the metros in South Africa.
“In Cape Town, 21.7 percent of people can’t find work. That’s still far too many, and we’re working very hard to bring that number down. But compare it to the rest of the country and you start to see what a success story Cape Town’s job creation project has been,” Maimane said.
Cape Town’s unemployment rate was a full 15 percentage points below the national average. It was eight percentage points lower than Tshwane’s, 10 percentage points lower than Johannesburg’s, and 12 percentage points lower than Nelson Mandela Bay’s.
“The DA has made great progress in Cape Town but we are not done yet. There is a lot more we need to do, and particularly in this city’s poorest areas. And I give you my word today that this is our highest priority.
“Now we have reached the point where our long-term plans for the city start to kick in. We are no longer just fixing faults and plugging holes – we are planning and building a truly world class city.”
This included a wide range of housing solutions, South Africa’s most advanced integrated transport network, the roll-out of broadband internet across the whole city, and it also included turning Cape Town into the greenest, most sustainable metro in South Africa.
“Let’s keep making progress in Cape Town,” Maimane said.
African News Agency (ANA)