Speech by Lynne Brown, ANC Leader of the Official Opposition in the Western Cape legislature to Premier Helen Zille's State of the Province Address, February 21 2012

Better Together - and then you go and close down the PDC, where government, business, civil society and labour come together to create a viable vehicle for partnerships. In fact, yesterday morning Morning Live carried a story of houses in Blue Downs that were delivered after 4 years in the pipeline where a woman complained that it was not what was promised ...

I think the DA-government is too arrogant to listen to the people of this province. In fact, the Premier argues with Simphiwe Dana that she can't be feeling isolated as a black person in this province - in fact, she asks her to prove it..and when she doesn't, accuses her of being a professional black!

You are the Premier, listen to the citizens, realize that apartheid has left us with open racial wounds and together we must heal those wounds, so that we can build a non-racial, non-sexist society - and as the Premier of this Province, you must lead that and make them feel part of the plan.....

You make personal attacks on anyone who raises issues you disagree with, on Twitter, Dr Boel Smuts in his private capacity raises the issue of leopards and you accuse him of being rude and then threaten him with his job. He's a highly accomplished doctor.

We have had terrible disasters in this Province because of your attitude - police brutality in Hangberg, the indignity of open toilets in Makhaza and recently, the Rondebosch Common protesters violently removed and I'm grateful that it didn't happen on against the protestors on Chapman's Peak - but I wonder why they were not met with the same violence.

Wilmot James in an article yesterday says that the DA is the opposition and not the enemy of the ANC. I want to take that further and say the ANC is the opposition and not the enemy. People who oppose you are not enemies, they have a view and you must learn to listen to it. Our project collectively, is to unite this province, build it and create a better life for all our people.

Today I rise to discuss the Premier's state of the Province address. It is midterm and by now, we in this Province, would feel and know who the DA really is. I am shocked by the speech. I would have assumed that the Premier understands the challenges of this Province and will therefore, respond in a much more holistic manner to those challenges. To have long-term, short-term and medium term responses. She characterizes poverty as the single biggest problem in this province and then does not show us systematically how we will deal with poverty today, create food security, a sustainable plan for housing delivery, good health care for the poorest.

No madam Premier, when we shine because our matrics do so well, and we don't show how we improve education in poor communities, we make mockery of a plan to be better together. Lukhanyo Mangona and Samuel Shapiro wrote an article in the Saturday Argus comparing schools in Khayelitsha and Rondebosch high; they conclude that Rondebosch high had more passes in physical science and Maths than the whole of Khayelitsha. Can you face the real challenges in this Province? That of poverty, inequality and unemployment, as the President also identifies.

So naturally, the response the Premier should've had to these challenges would be to create jobs where people live and to deal with the issues of inequality in our Province, not to deny the inequality and make those who feel the brunt of inequality to prove it.

This calls for an out of the box set of plans for the province which should be based on good quality education for all especially in poor communities to meet the challenges of the economy, good health care, a concerted effort at housing delivery in this province and so. I can go on.

However, the premier's economic policy based on an open opportunity society is a ruse so she doesn't have to deal with intervening in the economy. When the premier speaks about an open opportunity society, what she is really saying is that the status quo must be maintained. Access to power and the economy should still only be left in the hands of big, white business, at the exclusion of blacks and coloured people.

This, of course, entrenches the power dynamics that exist in this province, where white equals opportunity and privilege and black and coloured remain disadvantaged. The only major development is in the City Centre - so for jobs, Africans and coloureds and the poor should pay fortunes to get to their places of work. Since the closing of the RED Doors excluded communities from the Cape Flats and the townships or rural areas must forget about even thinking this DA-led government will support their efforts in starting small businesses.

This is contrary to the popular, global practice of investing in small and medium enterprises. Let's watch the space where more than R400 million will be spent on developing the Convention Centre, Foundry Garden and the Somerset Hospital Precincts who will get the business in this Province.

Lindiwe Mazibuko said infrastructure-led development is ‘left wing'. The ANC is unapologetic in saying that it is the only way to ensure that jobs are created in this Province. Premier, you once again launch the broadband initiative as premier, now - you did the same as mayor and nothing came of it. Is this just another empty promise?

No employment generating factories, no plans for empowerment.

Of course, Speaker, the Premier and her Cabinet will go to lengths to blame the ANC. I await this passing of the buck with anticipation. I just hope this administration will start to take ownership of their own actions.

The ANC's vision is as follows:

The ANC is 100% behind the government in this one. We fundamentally believe in creating jobs and economic power among black and coloured people to ensure that economic development happens in the Western Cape. Unlike Miss Mazibuko, we cannot sit around and dream of equality without putting the mechanisms place.

Speaker, we are grateful that our President, under the ANC, has prioritized infrastructure development for the benefit of the people of this country. This is a step in the positive direction. We welcome all efforts to better the lives of the poor in rural areas. For decades, rural areas have been left out of opportunities to participate in the economy of this country. They have been left at the mercy of unjust practices to be abused and exploited.

The commitment by our President to answer their call is the call of the ANC: fighting for the marginalized among us, balancing the inequalities that haunt us, and de-racialising poverty.

Speaker, to so vehemently believe in an open opportunity society is to be in denial about the reality facing this province. The reality is that black people, and black businesses previously had no support still have no support under the DA. To deny upstarts opportunities to realize their own dreams through opting to only deal with established business because, in the words of the Premier, "established businesses create the most employment", is a thinly veiled attempt to derail the efforts of our inclusive government. We are not going to tolerate this separate development.

The DA has racialised our province. Not dealing with inequality is racialising the Western Cape. Not dealing with issues affecting farmworkers, education and healthcare, is racialising this province.

Her MECs will skirt around issues, providing figures and excuses that again point to the lack of vision in this administration. The Premier will come back to answer and retort with the same condescending attitude that she displays when she is confronted with bold questions.

This Premier who deals so high handedly with the citizens of this province who dare ask her questions about what plans she has for their communities. The Premier, speaker, needs to know that she is not running a tuck shop with staff that she appoints. She is running a province on behalf of an electorate, whether these people voted her in power or not, she has to listen to them.

The Western Cape is FAR from an ideal world. The gap between rich and poor is more marked here than anywhere else in the world. Many of our people live in survival mode, scratching out a daily living, and often wondering where the next meal for the family will come from. The residents of Nyanga are living under siege from young people who are terrorizing the community. Nyanga, in case you are not aware, also happens to have the tag of the place with the highest murder rate in the country. The Cape Argus reported that the township is more violent that any of the gang infested areas in the Western Cape. If this doesn't sound like a warzone, then I don't know.

MEC, are they going to take advantage of your ‘open, opportunity society' when citizens require the interventionist policies of a developmental government in order to survive? Use your oversight powers NOW in regard to the Police. We don't need a new law. The full crime prevention attack cannot be based on speaking with gangsters, it has to have a multi-pronged approach - speaking to gangsters sells newspapers, but does not solve the crime problem our people face.

I am pleased the hospitals in Khayelitsha and Mitchell's Plain are ready for occupancy. The decision the ANC took at the time was to ensure that in the most populated areas - we should have health care close to where people live. By saying we have had the highest TB cures in the country and you forgot to say that we also have the highest incidence of TB in the province - in this Province, well-run and all, TB is a socio-economic disease, it's a disease mostly poor people get - so please show us the pro-poor plans of the DA.

I would like to take the Premier back to her own words. In 2009, you declared fit for purpose appointments. You threw terms like "international best practice: financial and human resource management", you said you would open all tender processes to the media and public as far as possible, introduced Dashboard, said you would introduce social entrepreneurship to offset ‘dependency' and said you would appoint the right people to the right positions. But this backfired when the communications tender scandal broke out. Then the DA's true colours were laid bare when the Premier appointed an all male, majority cabinet after failing to identify not even a single woman to be part of her cabinet beside herself. This of course, continues when a black HOD loses his/her job, the replacement will be white and except for education all males.

In 2010, the DA launched its ill informed "open, opportunity society". The ANC is still battling to understand what it means.

2011 saw a different kind of tune this time, we were fed dream and ideal fodder. The DA would create jobs. In fact, you would create jobs by taking care of established businesses and forego investment in start ups.

The ANC welcomes and congratulates the firemen who worked tirelessly to save the lives of people who live in informal settlements and back yarders. We commend you for your tireless efforts to safeguard the vulnerable in our communities. But the ANC also shares the pain of the families who have lost their loved ones in this cruel manner. We share the pain of families who start over, again and again when their possessions are razed by fires because they cannot afford adequate housing. At the beginning of this month alone, 120 families lost all their belongings to fires in Milnerton and Joe Slovo settlement. This is problem when houses are not being built.

This government has taken to describing other South Africans who come to this province to live and work as "migrants". In fact, this administration makes it seem like an anomaly that people from other provinces would want to come live in the Western Cape. This administration has created a xenophobic stance to people who especially come to the Eastern Cape, vulnerable people who are only looking to better their lives. The ANC welcomes everyone in this province, whether they are from Germany or France or Somalia, Nigeria of our own, the Eastern Cape. This country belongs to all who live in it and many have fought in for a better life. This country belongs to everyone. The secessionist attitude of the DA will not be tolerated by South Africans, let alone by the residents of the Western Cape.

‘Better together': can't be trusted, in fact, one would not be surprised to learn that this is the election slogan. You must walk the talk.

Issued by the ANC Western Cape, February 21 2012

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