Letter: Popcorn parties aim to destroy DA progress

Alan Winde

Siyavuya Mzantsi’s editorial (DA’s fear in Western Cape is justified, April 18, 2024) refers.

Since 2009, when the DA was elected to govern the Western Cape for the first time, the Western Cape government has emerged as the best-performing provincial government in the country.

The Western Cape has the lowest unemployment rate in South Africa –more than 10 percentage points lower than the national unemployment rate of 32.1%. In the last five years, four out of every five jobs in South Africa were created in the Western Cape.

It is the only province where murder has declined, due largely to the work of 1 300 Law Enforcement Advancement Plan (Leap) officers, in partnership with the City of Cape Town, and the province’s Rural Safety and K9 units.

The Western Cape has a functional and successful public health sector epitomised by its leading hospitals such as Tygerberg, George, Groote Schuur, the Red Cross Children’s Hospital, and the Khayelitsha, Mitchells Plain and Mowbray maternity hospitals.

And finally, every one of the 14 Western Cape provincial departments, as well as each of its 11 entities, achieved unqualified audits in the 2022/23 financial year. The Western Cape is the only province that can account for every cent of public money that is spent.

These are only a few examples of why the Western Cape is working, despite the ongoing failures of the ANC-led national government who are crippling our economy, allowing our state-owned enterprises to collapse, stealing from public finances, failing to provide basic service delivery and leaving us all, quite literally, in the dark.

The author conveniently ignores the fact that South Africa is one of the most unequal societies in the world, with one of the highest incidences of poverty.

And yet, despite the failures of the ANC-led national government to address these challenges, the Western Cape government is working hard to reduce inequality further by prioritising the needs of the poor and marginalised.

The fact is that over the last five years, the Western Cape under DA governance has consistently maintained a lower income inequality than the national average. The Western Cape’s GINI coefficient currently stands at 0.59, and has consistently fallen in recent years. By contrast, the national average has remained stubbornly at a comparatively-high 0.68.

Further success in this regard is evidenced by the Western Cape’s ongoing improvement in the Human Development Index (HDI), which measures the following three aspects of human development: health, education and per capita income. HDI in the province improved from 0.61 in 2001 to 0.74 in 2021 and is higher by 10 decimal percentage points than the national score.

With those statistics, how can anyone claim that only a few are benefitting from the DA’s good governance in the Western Cape?

We don’t deny that there is much more work to be done.

That is why, of the provincial government’s budget of R255.29 billion over the next three years, 75.4%, or R192.21bn, will be spent on directly meeting the needs of poor and vulnerable residents.

This will include allocations for primary health care, home and community-based care, mental health services, learner transport, the school nutrition programme, low-income housing, food gardens in communities and schools, child and youth care centres, and poverty alleviation programmes.

Importantly also, we know that nothing stops a bullet like a job, nothing puts food on the table like a job and nothing gives dignity like a job.

That is why we have a plan to create 800 000 jobs in the Western Cape.

There is only one party with the track record and the vision to govern effectively. That party is the DA.

So of course, we are surprised that small popcorn parties are choosing to campaign in this province.

When so much progress has been made, and when there is a clear plan already in place to care for the most vulnerable in our communities, alleviate poverty and address inequality across the Western Cape, why would these smaller parties (many of whom are just ANC-proxy parties) seek to destroy that. The Western Cape works.

That is why we are asking citizens to vote for the DA on May 29, so we can keep delivering to the people of the Western Cape.

* Alan Winde is the DA Premier candidate.

Cape Times