There is very little economic justice in the Western Cape. BOSA will change that.

Note to editors: the following remarks were made today by Build One South Africa (BOSA) Leader, Mmusi Maimane, at a public gathering in Gugulethu, Cape Town.

Fellow South Africans, Molweni.

There is a famous saying that goes “the greatness of a nation can be judged by how it treats its weakest member”.

Today, as I arrived here in Gugulethu, I asked myself what the living conditions here tell us about the government in this province.

What does the failure of service delivery, of sewerage running in the streets, of potholes and pit latrines, and of refuse pile up tell us about this government?

They have been in provincial government in the Western Cape for 15 years! Yet they want you to believe it's only been 15 minutes.

They’ve had 20 years running the City of Cape Town government. Thabo Mbeki was still our President when they took over here.

And time and again we hear the same excuses from them. It's the national government’s fault, they say. But they’ve had trillions of rands of public funds over this time. They pass a local and provincial budget each year, comprising billions of rands. Where has it all gone? And who has benefitted?

Fellow South Africans, there is a tale of two provinces in the Western Cape. One for the affluent, and one for the rest.

One where services are delivered timeously and to a high standard, and another where sewerage flows through the streets.

I want to say this clearly today: BOSA is committed to building one Western Cape where opportunities exist for all, and where the decades-old patterns of inclusion and exclusion are done away with.

There must be no illusions by some that they have a God-given right to govern here. No single party owns the Western Cape. That is an undemocratic sentiment.

In fact, the government here a strong opposition holding it to account in order to promote service delivery and job creation in every community in the province. Better still, the people of the Western Cape would benefit from a new progressive government led by BOSA.

Visit any township or informal settlement in this city and province, and you will see what the governing party here thinks and believes about the people living in those communities.

The location of certain communities and their proximity to economic activity still largely resembles the spatial patterns of the Apartheid society. The province is far from the utopia some would like you to believe it is.

Those who have a job live far from places of employment, spending hours a day commuting and large chunks of their earnings on transport.

And there are many without work. They come here and say unemployment is the lowest here in this province. What they don’t tell you is that today 864 000 people are still jobless in the Western Cape, with an expanded unemployment rate of 25.6%.

BOSA will fight for those neglected and forgotten South Africans who remain unemployed in this province, as we pursue putting a job in every home.

A job in every home concerns the state of the family and the home as well: where people live, how they function as a family unit, and how this impacts the functioning of community and society.

We cannot allow the incumbents here to trumpet their governance record on jobs while many are considered cheap labour imported from townships into the mainstream economy much like the apartheid economic system operated. This while citizens are subjected to horrific living conditions in communities ravaged by crime.

We must break this structure and allow citizens to live, work and socialise in uplifted communities whereby they are near to their families.

BOSA will address this in at least two ways. One, a rapid increase in affordable housing close to existing nodes of economic activity. And two, a rapid increase in investment in townships to ignite economic activity where millions of South Africans currently live.

One of BOSA’s flagship policies is the investment through the establishment of Township Special Economic Zones (TSEZs). There is a dual benefit here. Jobs are created whereby citizens can work where they live, saving on transport costs and allowing parents to be closer to their families.

And secondly, it averts the status quo whereby one works in the city and comes back home to under-developed townships. The very communities where poor citizens live will be uplifted and developed, bringing dignity to these communities.

Declaring all townships to be Special Economic Zones in terms of the SEZ Act No. 16 of 2014 will enable government to offer tax breaks, employment incentives, and streamlined regulation. It will also help direct public and private funding to entrepreneurs who establish businesses in townships.

Alongside these measures we will establish facilities designed to help entrepreneurs with registering companies, developing business plans and strategies, bookkeeping, legal assistance, tax filings and other resources to turn fledgling informal businesses into thriving formal companies that employ many people.

 Many of these benefits will also be extended to larger businesses who establish branches, manufacturing facilities or warehouses in townships.

This will stimulate the development of homegrown ‘kasinomics’ businesses, and also attract companies from elsewhere to move to the townships to enjoy the advantages of less red tape and better tax treatment. It will create many more jobs far closer to home, reducing what people now spend on transport to far-away jobs.

With an estimated 18 million households averaging 3.3 persons per household, to put a job in every home will require at least 2 million new jobs. Our manifesto, entitled our “Jobs Plan”, unpacks how BOSA will create 2 million new jobs over five years.

Our candidates will be working hard for the next 25 days, taking our offer from community to community in a bid to build a fairer, inclusive and more equal Western Cape where there is a job in every home.

Our message to voters is this: choose BOSA on voting day in order to put a job in every Western Cape home and to pursue economic justice.

Issued by BOSA, 4 April 2024