Cape Town - Western Cape Premier Alan Winde promised a shopping bag full of plans for the new year, but could be stopped at the tills because of budget cuts across all spheres of government, the result of bailouts at Eskom and other state-owned enterprises.
Delivering the State of the Province Address (Sopa) in the Rocklands Civic Centre in Mitchells Plain to politicians and invited guests yesterday, Winde said he would concentrate on energy resilience, transport, job creation and safety during the 2020/21 financial year. But he said state capture had sucked money away from service delivery and crippled state-owned enterprises. He also spoke about measures the provincial government had taken to lessen wastage and corruption.
He acknowledged youth unemployment was at a high: “Fewer jobs also means less tax money, which means budget cuts to health and education departments across the country. As a government, we want to treat these challenges as opportunities but we have also learnt that we don’t have all the answers nor the capacity to do things alone.”
Winde was energised by President Cyril Ramaphosa’s plans to liberalise electricity generation: “We will work hard and fast to make maximum use of the opportunities that the president’s announcements provide.
“We will help municipalities to procure energy from independent power producers. Procurement in the government space is complicated and time consuming, so we will ensure there is dedicated support to speed up a more robust procurement process.”
On green energy, he said: “We will increase the greening of government buildings across the Western Cape. Where there is a government rooftop that can benefit from solar, it will be installed. We already have systems on 17 provincial buildings.”
Some of the other plans he revealed for the next year included the carrying out a feasibility study on moving control of rail away from national government control. “We still believe rail should lie with us because we have the capacity and determination to get it right for the citizens of this province.”
He said as a result of the deteriorating rail services, minibus taxis had become the most widely used form of public transport. “The taxi industry is a double-edged sword; on the one hand it is a vital asset to our people and economy but, on the other, we know that some taxis aren’t safe.”
On job creation, he said: “The Western Cape government has
managed to source funding in excess of R250 million from the private sector, national government and City of Cape Town that will ensure 1000 unemployed youth are trained and placed in jobs.”
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