SONA 2016: President Zuma leaves NMB’s jobless residents with no hope
16 February 2016
Note to Editors: The following speech was delivered in Parliament by DA Mayoral Candidate for Nelson Mandela Bay, Athol Trollip MPL, during SONA Debate 2016.
What preceded the SONA and the address itself might create a misguided perception that the extent of state capture is driven by one family. The fact is it is not!
The state has systematically been captured by a number of families, in the senior ANC leadership echelon and their friends, led inimitably by Jacob Zuma and ably abetted by the ANC itself.
The ANC role in Jacob Zuma’s state capture revealed itself unambiguously when the President said “the ANC comes first” and the ANC caucus nodded.
The President, due to his political chicanery has no one to blame but himself for having to present his SONA from behind an unprecedented barricade of steel and razor wire.
When the President dodges accountability, the people will not let that slide.
Its dishonourable!
Zintloni!
As, Aubrey Matshiqi put it, Mr. President “You have not convinced the poor and jobless that anything will be better", you will know this in August when the elections will "toll" the death knell of your presidency and legitimacy as more and municipal seats and more and local governments fall from ANC control.
That is why, as Mayoral Candidate for Nelson Mandela Bay, I am here today to represent the voice of millions of unemployed, from the Metro with the highest unemployment in South Africa.
The President provided them no hope and no answers, but I am here today to fight for their future opportunities.
Madam Speaker, the President has presided over a government that will not redress the grievances of the unemployed and the jobless, YOUR ANC has compounded matters and worse, you laugh about it!!
Not even during this most seminal SONA could you resist laughing at the Nation!
To add insult to this neglect, the ANC have spawned a new racial fascism. As you politic on racism and divide people, you should be ashamed of undoing President Mandela’s example and legacy.
Your unabashed performance here last week where you addressed us without so much as a hint of an apology for your deceit, was a disgrace. And the analysis, the markets and this debate shows just how removed you are from reality. The President presented last week a SONA from another planet, from another dimension.
Like Minister Nhleko, Min Nxesi, Hon Frolick, Hon Sizani, Hon Motshekga and the rest of the ANC Nkandla Ad hoc committee for their "Ad hoc" defence of your manifestly indefensible self-service – all equally live in another dimension.
Like Minister Nhleko, hang your heads in shame, and mop your brows from the sweating of guilty men.
Ngawume! – tengani nonke amatshefu ukusula iqanda ebusweni benu!! ( wait! You all need to buy handkerchiefs to wipe the egg off your faces)
While you were all defending Nkandla, millions of our people were cast out into unemployment, and you didn’t care!
You cared to defend one man, and let 8,3 million more people become unemployed.
The highest percentage of them in Nelson Mandela Bay!
Hon. Speaker, the President had the temerity, after just one, and long overdue meeting with business leaders of the private sector, to state that the reasons for the parlous state of our economy are the global headwinds of slowed growth and international recession. The President and his tripartite alliance partners malign so easily at their meetings and rallies,
The President clearly didn’t take this new found economic intuition into account when he fired Minister Nene and replaced him with his strawman, the 3-day Finance Minister Van Rooyen.
He called the Nation and the markets response “an overreaction”!
This response is what makes whatever he says about fiscal discipline and prudence unbelievable. Akuthembeki nge meko zemali, mongameli. You simply have no credibility in this regard.
Speaking of credibility, the President’s lack thereof is sadly not limited to the realm of economics.
Politically you have left a trail of broken promises and hamstrung administrations in all three spheres of government.
Your lack of example and leadership has led to factional chaos and management ineptitude that impedes all good government.
In the Eastern Cape, the shame ANC larceny in the name of our late hero, President Nelson Mandela, in the fraudulent funeral saga remains unresolved (in fact those involved have been re-elected and even recently promoted).
Your party insider have been directly implicated in the notorious multi million rand, "SIYENZA" toilet fraud scandal – again there have been no consequences to this fraud and corruption.
And all the while more and more South Africans are cast out into unemployment while your ANC insiders get richer and richer.
And Nelson Mandela Bay is a prime example. The President said nothing about tightening the belt of local government, other than “inviting” mayors to cut down on costs – but no instructions, no leadership, no directives from President Zuma; just invitations.
Nelson Mandela Bay has an unemployment rate of 36,6% and a youth unemployment rate of 47,3%.
this despite having two major Ports, an established motor industry, the Coega IDZ , the much vaunted operation Phakisa and is a potential tourism boom.
Why won’t the ANC create jobs in Nelson Mandela Bay?
Because it is too busy squabbling over the patronage of power, under the undemocratically imposed regional task team’s incompetence.
It is too busy hiring and firing new mayors each year, one worse and more aloof than the next.
Corruption and maladministration abound in Nelson Mandela Bay, despite the many and long outstanding forensic investigation reports and the AG reports on billions of misspent rands and the collapse of the NMB housing department.
The President instructed that the NHA take over housing delivery, they too have only met 15% of their target of 2700 units because corruption is so ingrained and endemic in the provision of housing in the Metro and the National Department of Human Settlements.
Staying with Nelson Mandela Bay Metro, the President has broken his public pledge to fund the upgrading of the Nooitgedacht low water scheme where he promised R400 million just before 2014 elections.
It seems that the only kind of promise we can expect from President Zuma is a broken promise.
This broken promise is catastrophic in a water scarce city where we lose 42% of our water to leakages and lack of infrastructure maintenance.
The President also launched his “WAR on LEAKS” campaign in Nelson Mandela Bay. To date the war is more like a battlefield re-enactment: just for show.
There has been no sign of the war having begun apart from the arrival and departure of hundreds of busses from across the country to fill a stadium of people with ANC t-shirts who have once again been misled.
The municipality is chaotically administered with political meddling is the order of the day. Having 6 Mayors and 6 Municipal Managers in 15 years is sad testimony to this.
The Auditor-General’s report speaks of billions of rands being misspent and the grounded IPTS bus service has served only to constrict busy arterial roads and compound commuter misery - an albatross around the neck of the ANC.
In conclusion, Madam Speaker, the President said not a word about education. This despite the 10% decrease in the matric pass rate in the Eastern Cape and a 20% decrease in the pass rate in the Northern areas of the NMBM where parents closed schools last year and again for more than a month this year.
Did no one tell President Zuma about this??
Or perhaps he simply had no solution to this enormous schooling catastrophe, at the hands of his government.
The tragedy of this is that violent crime, drug abuse and gangsterism are on the ascendancy in this area and this situation will just make it worse.
And yet the President said nothing about Education? You must be sleepwalking, Mr President.
But while you remain distracted by the numerous scandals that taint your name, there are politicians who care deeply and will take up these fights. This is why we are campaigning will all of our energy to win Nelson Mandela Bay.
The President’s lip-service to crime fighting was an insult to the thousands of crime victims who are unprotected every day. As a prime example: Despite the NMBM council applying to establish a Metro Police force in 2009 and this being acceded to by Province in 2012, there still is no Metro police force, yet there is a Metro Police force Chief employed at R1million /annum. This is a crying shame of careless neglect.
Instead of red-herrings about moving Parliament, our lazer-like focus must be on cutting out waste, by voting out governments that abuse and squander our public money.
Hon. Speaker, judging by the actual state of our Nation and the myopic state of the nation address, I can’t help but think and hope that last Thursday will be a catalyst for change.
The fact is that the ANC under Jacob Zuma cannot and will not solve our economic crisis, it cannot and will not create jobs. It is torn between what must be done to keep investment coming in, and the interests of COSATU and the Communists.
The winds of change are blowing stronger and stronger. Tshwane, Johannesburg, and Nelson Mandela Bay are all soon to be governed by the DA.
Issued by the DA 16 February 2016
