Register to vote for the only party that can keep your streets safe

Note to Editors: the following speech was delivered today by DA Leader, Mmusi Maimane, at the party’s Western Cape Registration Rally in Bonteheuwel, Cape Town. Maimane was joined by DA Western Cape Premier Candidate, Alan Winde, DA Western Cape Provincial Leader, Bonginkosi Madikizela, Cape Town Metro Chairperson, Grant Twigg, and Team One SA Spokesperson on Corruption, Phumzile van Damme.

My fellow South Africans,

Over the next four months the DA will run a positive election campaign based on our plan to grow the economy and put people in jobs, a plan to speed up service delivery and a plan to make every community in our country safe from criminals.  We will show our track record in delivering the best government for all people and ask voters to judge us on this track record.

Other parties will try to steer the conversation away from these things. Those without a plan and a credible track record will try to turn regular South Africans into enemies of each other. They will try to find scapegoats for their failures. They will use inflammatory and divisive language, creating a false “us” and “them”. And they will try to keep you focused on our past rather than our future.

Don’t allow yourself to be fooled by such talk. When it comes to choosing a government, there is only one question that matters: Will it improve the lives of ordinary South Africans, and particularly the poor and the vulnerable? Everything else is just noise and distraction.

There is only one party that has proven, again and again, it has what it takes to move this country forward, and that party is the DA.

Nowhere is this more evident than here in the Western Cape. Over the past ten years the DA has transformed the Western Cape from the broken, dysfunctional province we inherited from the ANC into one that leads all other provinces in every single measure of good governance. And because we want to continue this fight, we have a Premier candidate here who I like to call Mr Delivery, because that’s what he does. He delivers.

Alan Winde is not a man who likes to boast. He doesn’t need to. His results do the talking. As Minister of Economic Opportunities he spearheaded this province’s drive for investment, growth and job creation. Today the Western Cape has the lowest unemployment rate in South Africa. More than half the jobs created in SA this past year came from this province.

Today the Western Cape is the easiest province to do business in. It is a province that continued to grow jobs in agriculture and tourism, despite a drought. And this means it is the province where people – and particularly young people – have the best chance of getting ahead in life. That’s what matters when choosing a government.

Another measure of a caring government is what it does to keep its people safe. As you know, policing and SAPS is controlled by national government, but that doesn’t mean provincial governments don’t have a crucial role to play. And again, the DA government in the Western Cape has gone further than any other province when it comes to oversight over the police.

From the Khayelitsha Commission of Enquiry and the Community Safety Act to the establishment of a Police Ombudsman and the annual inspection of 150 police stations, no one takes community safety more seriously than the DA.

When the ANC government refused our demands for a special anti-gang unit, we did it ourselves in the City of Cape Town, under the leadership of JP Smith. And finally, years later, they realised that it was the right thing to do, and reintroduced the specialised unit.

But it doesn’t end with oversight. If the ANC can’t do it properly, we will do it. We want to decentralise policing and give provinces real power in crime fighting and community protection.

Alan Winde has made it clear that he will fight for a Provincial Police Force that can best serve the communities of the Western Cape. We want a police force for our province, controlled by our province, for the people of our province. That is what we want, and Alan is going to fight for it.

Ultimately, the goal is a DA-led national government. Because in national government we can realise our dream of a safe South Africa by transforming our Police Force into one with the skills and the power to kick violent criminals, gangsters and drug dealers out of our communities for good.

To do so, we will professionalise the police force, appointing only skilled and qualified leadership. We will also focus on the four U’s: Under-staffing, under-training, under-resourcing and under-equipping.

This means auditing and upgrading all police stations. It means auditing all weapons and equipment, as well as taking disciplinary steps against those who have lost or abused firearms, equipment and vehicles. It means bringing in expert inspectors for all stations. It means bringing in performance management technology such as body cams. It means ensuring that all stations have reliable internet connections.

Our plan also involves rigorous testing and assessment of all police recruits, as well as more practical training and simulated learning at police academies. It involves regular firearm testing, crowd control training, as well as mentorship for all detectives.

Our plan will address under-staffing by increasing the number of operational SAPS members from 194,000 to 250,000 in our first term of office and then boosting these numbers with a strong reservist force. We will fill all specialist positions and we will build a team of crime intelligence analysts and detectives. We will bring back all the specialised units and we will move more officers from their desks into communities.

Under the DA, our Police Force will be transformed into a highly trained, highly motivated crime-fighting machine. Criminals will have nowhere to hide, and we will ensure that arrests are followed by prosecutions and convictions.

This is the level of intervention required to take back our communities from the criminals who have invaded our streets and threatened our families. And only the DA is committed to doing so.

So when other parties come here with their divisive messages of “us” and “them”, or when they promise you the world but offer no proof of how they plan to deliver, tell them you’re only interested in a government that can help create jobs, a government that can speed up service delivery and a government that can keep your streets safe.

There is only one such government, and that is the DA. So go and make sure you are registered to vote. There is only one registration weekend before the election, and it is the last weekend of January. Use it to make sure your name is on the voter’s roll, and tell your friends and family to do the same.

Then, in May, go out and vote for the government that can build the country you want to live in – one South Africa for all its people. Vote for the Premier that can continue the good work the DA has already done in this province. Vote for your future.

Statement issued by Mmusi Maimane, Leader of the Democratic Alliance, 6 January 2019