Cape Town - The African National Congress mayoral candidates announced late on Saturday night after a special ANC national executive committee (NEC) meeting represent more of the same - more corruption, deteriorating service delivery for the poor, and higher unemployment, the Democratic Alliance said.
“The ANC cannot bring the change South Africa needs because it is more concerned with putting allies of [President] Jacob Zuma in top mayoral positions,” DA spokeswoman Phumzile van Damme said on Sunday.
“Zuma’s pals will, like the president, put self-enrichment first and the people last,” she said.
In the past year since being sent to Nelson Mandela Bay by Zuma, mayor Danny Jordaan had shown himself to be a “part-time mayor of broken promises after having faked the launch of a metro police, introducing 21 000 more NMB residents to the ranks of the unemployed since December 2015, and losing over R320 million to leaks and electricity theft in the last nine months”.
In five years Johannesburg mayor Parks Tau had overseen unemployment in the city rise to 869 000. At the same time conditions in the informal settlements of Johannesburg had deteriorated to where the SA Human Rights Commission was now investigating the Johannesburg ANC government for human rights abuses.
“That the ANC wants to give Tau another term in government shows that the ANC doesn’t take service delivery and stopping corruption seriously,” Van Damme said.
“In Tshwane, the failure to reaffirm mayor [Sputla] Ramokgopa shows that the ANC recognises that he and his ANC government have failed to deliver, including Sputla’s PEU smart-meter billion rand scandal, unlawful broadband contracts, undrinkable water in Hammanskraal, [and] with 40 000 more people joining the ranks of the unemployed in Tshwane since January 2016.
“The bottom line is that the ANC’s mayoral candidates for the battleground metros are not in the best interests of South Africa. They cannot bring about real and positive change. Zuma’s pals will focus on benefiting the ANC-connected elite at the expense of the poor. More of the same from the ANC will simply not bring the change that South Africa needs to move forward again.
“The DA is ready to bring real change to Nelson Mandela Bay, Tshwane, Johannesburg, Ekurhuleni and many other places across our beautiful nation. This is the change that will stop corruption, deliver better services and create jobs. This is the change we need to move our country forward again,” Van Damme said.
DA Tshwane mayoral candidate Solly Msimanga said the ANC’s failure to announce a mayoral candidate for Tshwane was the surest sign yet that the ANC was deeply divided in Tshwane and paralysed by factionalism.
“The people of Tshwane deserve better than a divided and broken party governing the city. As ANC factionalism and infighting continues, the people of Tshwane are suffering.”
Under the ANC, key indicators in Tshwane pointed to a city in decline. These included unemployment up from 24.2 percent in the 2011 Census to 26 percent in the latest quarterly labour force survey. In total 517 000 people in Tshwane did not have jobs or had given up looking.
For the past five years, Tshwane had not received a clean audit and last year R1 886 200 000 was lost to financial misconduct according to auditor general through unauthorised, irregular, fruitless, and wasteful expenditure.
“The DA is ready to govern Tshwane... the DA can win Tshwane to cut corruption, deliver better services, and to create jobs,” Msimanga said.
– African News Agency