Limpopo needs sustainable jobs, not mega-corruption projects

Note to Editors: the following remarks were made today by DA Leader, Mmusi Maimane, outside the Limpopo Economic Development Agency (LEDA) in Polokwane. Maimane was joined by DA Limpopo Premier Candidate, Jacques Smalle, Team One South Africa Spokesperson on Youth, Luyolo Mphithi, and Team One South Africa Campaign Spokesperson, Solly Malatsi

My fellow South Africans

This province of Limpopo is a national treasure with its spectacular natural beauty and rich cultural heritage. But it is also a province beset with problems that all stem from poor governance and runaway corruption.

If ever there was a place crying out for change – for a fresh start under a caring and accountable government – then it is this province of Limpopo. Today, four in ten adults here don’t have work, and the vast majority of these are young people.

If you cast your mind back to the ANC’s election campaign in 1994, you’ll remember it was all about “jobs, jobs, jobs”. But that never happened. Today, 24 years later, we’re worse off. We didn’t gain jobs, we lost them.

Here in Limpopo it’s particularly bad, because this province has been stolen dry by the very government that promised us jobs and progress all those years ago. Here, the business of government tenders and contracts has become a feeding frenzy for connected cadres, and the people have been completely forgotten.

I’d like to remind you what former President, Kgalema Motlanthe once said about the motives of the ANC in government. He said:

"This rot is across the board. It's not confined to any level or any area of the country. Almost every project is conceived because it offers opportunities for certain people to make money. A great deal of the ANC's problems are occasioned by this.”

This pervasive culture of greed and corruption has had a severe impact on the lives of poor, unemployed people. Consider that the difference between Limpopo’s narrow unemployment rate and the expanded unemployment rate is a full 18 percentage points. That’s an indication of just how many people have lost all hope of ever finding work and don’t even bother looking anymore.

People here – mostly young people – vote with their feet. Between 2011 and 2016 this province had a net migration of -1,2 million people as the youth left to seek their fortunes elsewhere. At 70%, Limpopo also has the highest number of youth living below the poverty line in SA.

These are shameful numbers, and I am here today to say we don’t have to accept this. Today marks the start of the DA’s 2019 campaign in this province, and over the next seven months we will be taking our message of change to all corners of Limpopo.

Led by our committed and hard-working Premier candidate, Jacques Smalle, we will make sure that every man and woman in Limpopo knows that only the DA can bring change that builds one South Africa that works for all her people.

The most important change we need to bring here is opportunities for work. So when we hear of a massive project aimed at bringing development and industry to the area, it should be cause for celebration. The announcement of a Special Economic Zone between Musina and Makhado, along with the promise of 22,000 jobs, should be welcomed.

But before we celebrate anything, we need to know exactly what is being offered, and at what cost. And this proposed SEZ, of which the Limpopo Economic Development Agency is the implementing agent, has been cloaked in secrecy from the very start.

This SEZ complete with its own proposed power station and coal mines – belonging to MC Mining with a Chinese company as its largest shareholder – is being bankrolled by nine Chinese companies who have committed to invest more than $10bn in the project. That’s over R145bn – almost 10% of our country’s annual budget.

With an investment of this magnitude it is critical that we know exactly what the terms and conditions are, but as was the case in the Eskom mega-loan from the China Development Bank, all details around this deal have been deliberately kept under wraps.

We all know what happens when countries sign opaque deals with China. It never ends well for the host country. Just ask Sri Lanka, who had to surrender an entire port and surrounding land. Or just ask Zambia who stand to lose Lusaka International airport to the Chinese.

We must welcome foreign investment from anywhere, but then we must know what we’re getting ourselves into. Because what this increasingly looks like is the establishment of a small Chinese empire in the north of our country from which a handful of connected cadres will get fabulously rich.

When you see who has already lined themselves up to benefit from this deal, you will find the name of Cassel Mathale right at the top of this list. The very same Mathale who brought this province to its knees through corruption and mismanagement and now, along with his friends, owns substantial interests in the MC Mining projects.

You will also see that there is very limited beneficiation to the local community in this project, with only one of the four mines providing any community interest at all. In fact, a 10.8% community share in Coal of Africa somehow disappeared when Coal of Africa changed its name to MCM at the inception of this project. In whose pocket did this shareholding end up?

We also need to connect the dots between the proposed expropriation of coal-rich farms in the area – along with a last-minute change of plans for the transportation of coal from rail to road – and plans to build a new 4600MW power station just 40km up the road. A power station that doesn’t feature anywhere in our Integrated Resource Plan and will seemingly not benefit the 45,000 people within a 100km radius who are currently without electricity.

And finally we will also need answers on crucial issues around the environmental impact of this project, and where the millions of litres of water needed to sustain it in a drought-stricken region will come from. Because no such answers have been given.

In fact, the Environmental Impact Assessment has not yet been concluded, and yet the Memorandum of Understanding has already been signed. When asked about this, the man tasked by LEDA with the planning and implementation of the project dismissed it by saying: “I have yet to see an EIA that has not been approved.”

And that seems to be the central theme of this project: It will happen, no matter what, because connected cadres have already lined themselves up for a massive windfall. And because it is done under the banner of “job creation”, we dare not question it.

But what jobs are these, and for whom?

If this ANC government is good at one thing, it is disguising their corruption behind a fig leaf of caring for the poor. Yes, we desperately need jobs for young people here in Limpopo. But that doesn’t mean we should stop asking questions, or accept massively corrupt deals.

So before we celebrate a thing, we need to know:

- What are the terms and conditions of the investment deal with China?

- What precisely is the nature of the 22,000 jobs that have been promised, and where will this labour come from?

- How can we consider building a power station that doesn’t feature in our IRP?

- Where will the water for this project come from?

- How were contracts signed before any of the Environmental Impact Assessments were concluded?

- What are the details of local beneficiation around this project?

- And who are the people that sat on the Advisory Board at the time when the Musina-Makhado SEZ project was approved?

Until we have truthful answers to all of these questions we cannot conclude that the motive for this deal is honourable or that the promise of thousands of local jobs is genuine.

It is heart-breaking that we only ever hear of Limpopo in the news when it has to do with either corruption or service delivery failure. Between the looting of VBS bank, the multi-million Rand tender fraud of Julius Malema and On-Point Engineering and the daily protests against poor service delivery in dozens of failed municipalities, this province has suffered more than most.

And, unless proven otherwise, this latest ANC project looks set to dwarf all the corruption that has already taken place here. We cannot allow that to happen.

It is time to put Limpopo on a new road towards prosperity and inclusivity. It is time to kick out the corrupt – to put the people here first and the politicians last.

Where you put your cross in next year’s election will determine which road this province and our country will take. Let us work together to bring the change that builds one South Africa for all.

Issued by the Democratic Alliance, 26 October 2018