During my special address to the Western Cape provincial parliament, I asked members of the opposition to work with us in demonstrating the courage and determination that is needed to get the job done during this difficult time for our country.
While there will always be points of difference, I know that we all want what is best for the people of the Western Cape.
Sadly, during the debate on Friday, most political parties didn't take me up on this suggestion. In fact, many speakers didn't propose a single new idea of how we can recover.
Fortunately, the Western Cape government did. We proposed new, brave "moon-shots" that will help us realise our mission of creating jobs, building a safer and more compassionate province and realising the dignity and well-being that every person is entitled to – because every life matters to us.
One of these bold announcements is that of Blue Dot service. We know that the national government has allowed the central line in Cape Town to crumble, while money gets pumped into failing state-owned entities such as SA Airways. We need working public transport that arrives safely and on time. Not more state-sponsored plane trips for those who already have an income.
We have therefore partnered with the taxi industry to roll out a system that ensures that taxis are safe, affordable and reliable, while at the same time also supporting jobs in the industry. The Blue Dot Service will provide monthly incentives to taxi operators and drivers to provide good service and to operate safely. We will use technology and a five-star rating system to track performance against set targets.
During my speech, I also set out how we will ensure the that dignity and well-being of every person is realised throughout someone's life, from birth to death.
Among the announcements we made in this regard was the additional allocation of funding to food relief by community kitchens. Since the beginning of lockdown we have seen the need for food increase as thousands have lost their jobs, or struggled to feed themselves or their families. We will also continue to provide food gardens to households through our One Home One Garden campaign and we will be providing vouchers to community kitchens so that they can purchase what they need from local businesses and spaza shops to help stimulate these businesses.
We also announced that we would be developing a comprehensive surveillance system, including a stunting baseline survey that will show us exactly where we need to intervene with food aid in the future.
We know that Covid-19 has had an impact on residents accessing health-care services and we will be using the lessons and innovations learnt to provide health-care services.
TB remains a leading cause of death and we therefore announced a strategy to find, screen and treat those with TB through a 90/90/90 strategy.
This means we aim to identify 90% of all TB cases and place them on treatment, find 90% of TB cases in vulnerable populations such as those living with HIV and to successfully treat 90% of all those diagnosed with drug sensitive TB.
We also know that the ECD (early childhood development) sector plays an incredibly important role in creating safe spaces for children, jobs (mostly for women) and it allows many parents to go off to work each day in the knowledge that their child is cared for.
We announced increased assistance to the sector in order to allow those who have not yet re-opened to do so safely by providing PPE and hygiene materials.
Ultimately though, our vision is that everyone can access early childhood development, if they so decide. It is therefore an important priority going forward. We will be convening a special consultative forum with key stakeholders doing amazing work in this space, to plot a common way forward to ensure that ECDs are treated like a critical service, and their work can be expanded to reach many more children.
We announced that we will scale up shelter space and related services for the homeless in areas where it is needed most and will focus on the reintegration of homeless adults.
We also announced that we will take our commitment to inclusionary housing even further by finalising our inclusionary housing policy by the end of the financial year.
These are just some of the announcements which will significantly impact the health, and dignity of the people in this province and which we will be working hard to implement. We do this because the people of this province matter to us, and we want them to live a life of value.
My offer to the opposition still stands. Send us your suggestions and ideas and show us and the people of the Western Cape that you too have the courage to get the job done.
* Alan Winde is the premier of the Western Cape.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
Cape Argus
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