Durban - DA interim leader John Steenhuisen has warned elderly people in Pietermaritzburg to worried about government policies that will eat away at their savings and their pensions.
He told the residents of the Woodgrove Retirement Village that National Health Insurance (NHI) was bad because it would nationalise the health sector.
“It would have a devastating effect on our healthcare, and how you access healthcare and how you choose healthcare,” he said.
He said the idea that pension funds, which is managed by the Public Investment Corporation (PIC), should be used to rescue Eskom should be rejected.
“When you instruct your pension funds to buy bad Eskom debt and buy bad SAA debt it is a terrible investment, and they are going to affect the life savings of ordinary South Africans.
“Expropriation (of land) without compensation is a terrible idea, which undermines property rights,” he said.
Steenhuisen said ordinary South Africans should resist these policies “with all we can”.
He said the country was in economic recession because of the ANC policies.
“The country's economy has been shoved into recession by terrible policy choices. “Why is it that Ethiopia is growing with eight percent, Sub-Saharan Africa is growing with three percent?
“Everyone in the world is getting richer while South Africa is getting poorer, it is because of bad policy choice,” said Steenhuisen.
He said the economic situation in the country would worsen if government decisions were not challenged.
“People may be cross with the DA because we got a few things wrong. We have made some mistakes as we are not perfect and not a Vatican choir.
“But when we get it wrong we look very hard at why we got it wrong and we get out there and correct it,” he said.
He told his audience, to vote for the DA during the by-elections and next year's local government elections.
“There is nowhere where the DA is needed more than ever before than right here in Msunduzi,” he said.
He described Msunduzi as the epitome of a failed state.
“This town has all the ingredients, spectacular natural beauty, beautiful architectural buildings, but it just needs proper management and proper love and the vision for the city.
“Instead it is just completely mismanaged, corrupt and there is a don’t care attitude by the leaders who are in charge of it, and we need to change this through the ballot box,” he said.
He said Tshwane, Johannesburg, Nelson Mandela Bay, Cape Town and Midvaal and 37 other municipalities in the Western Cape, which were under the DA, were better managed than Msunduzi.