SA has one choice: Coalition of Corruption or the DA’s Real Change
Note to Editors: the following remarks were delivered today by DA Leader, Mmusi Maimane, at a media briefing following a two-day sitting of the party’s final Federal Council for 2018. Maimane was joined by DA National Spokesperson, Refiloe Nt’sekhe, and Team One South Africa National Spokesperson, Solly Malatsi.
Federal Council, the DA’s highest decision-making body in between Federal Congress, met over the past two days to discuss matters of national importance and the party’s 2019 national election campaign. The agenda was marked by many critical issues facing the country and the party. This press briefing serves to communicate the outcomes of the last sitting of the DA Federal Council for the year.
Federal Council noted the devastating fire which claimed a life and displaced over 4 000 people in Khayelitsha. The Western Cape Government and the City of Cape Town have been deployed along with emergency services to assist people following this fire. Our public representatives will be in the area assisting with rebuilding for people throughout this week. We will be prioritising the matric leaners who will be writing exams this coming week to ensure that the Department of Home Affairs assist with the replacement of ID documents and birth certificates.
The Council also noted with great sadness the N1 car crash in which 27 people lost their lives. We extend our deepest condolences to the families and friends of those who were involved.
During the party’s deliberations this weekend, it has become clear that South Africans only have one choice in these upcoming elections. The choice is between the coalition of corruption of the ANC and the EFF or the DA’s agenda for change.
Several weeks ago, the party launched its election campaign and outlined our offer for South Africa as we head into the upcoming elections. We unpacked what we term the Agenda for Change which entails our offer on creating access to jobs; cutting corruption; fixing the police service to make it honest and professional, securing our borders and speeding up the delivery of basic services.
This past week, we have launched our plan to address illegal immigration. The DA has laid out the problem facing South Africa in this policy area. No country in the world can afford to not secure their borders precisely because uncontrolled immigration violates the rights of both nationals of a given country and those foreign nationals who seek to be legally recognised.
In our country, our borders are porous while the South African Defense Force (SANDF) is ill-equipped to perform their basic function of protecting our points of entry. The Department of Home Affairs (DHA) is chronically corrupt and has created a situation where we are completely unaware of the number of people who come in and out of the country. That has profound consequences on the efforts against cross-border crime such as human and drug trafficking, stock theft as well on the provision of basic services to our people - as local and provincial governments are forced to plan and budget for service provision without the most basic of information.
The DA launched a detailed plan that would deal decisively with this issue, something that the ANC has failed to do. The DA would strengthen border security; eradicate corruption at Home Affairs; assist foreign nationals to be regularised or assisted to leave the country; assist and support legitimate refugees and asylum-seekers and attract scarce skills to the country.
The DA has been first out the blocks to launch our offer for the country because of the sheer urgency for change that builds One South Africa for all.
The EFF/ANC Coalition of Corruption in Nelson Mandela Bay
In Nelson Mandela Bay, the ANC and EFF coalesced to unseat the coalition government that had begun to make tangible differences in the lives of the people who live in that metro.
The coalition that has been formed by the ANC and EFF is the biggest threat facing our people right now. These political parties have given up on building a non-racial country as was envisioned by Nelson Mandela.
They seek to divide us on the basis of race in an effort to create a distraction from their failing governments or looting sprees. They defied the will of the people and through back-door deals, removed a government that was doing what it was elected to do which is to serve.
Cost of living
Since Federal Council last met on 15 July 2018, the South African economy went into a recession for the first time in almost a decade. This remains an express vote of no confidence in the ANC government, its economic policies and ability to create access to jobs for all South Africans.
This is our first recession since 2009 and the fifth consecutive year that the people of South Africa have been getting poorer. South Africa is now the weakest and only one of the world’s biggest economies in recession and while the rest of the continent is growing at 3% with Ethiopia, Rwanda, Cote d’Ivoire and Senegal growing at above 7%, we are shrinking at -0.7% negative growth.
Global forces did not cause this recession. Mismanagement of the economy and bad policy did.
South Africans are poorer because of an inefficient, captured and corrupt ANC government’s mismanagement of the economy. Fuel now sits at over R16 per litre, VAT has increased for the first time in 20 years, sugar is up, income tax has increase by more than the past 3 years and almost 10 million South Africans are unemployed.
This economic mismanagement has starved the country of productive investment and global investors are losing appetite in South Africa as a stable and sound investment location. They are not married to any one country and will explore elsewhere as long as basic fundamentals like the rule of law and protection of property rights are perceived to be up for grabs in South Africa.
Corruption
The heinous heist at VBS Mutual Bank is yet another reminder of the coalition of corruption formed by the ANC and the EFF.
ANC politicians, politically connected businesspersons and their associates’ theft of almost R2 billion from VBS bank accounts is an unconscionable crime against the poor, vulnerable and elderly in the country. It is crucial that the Hawks investigates these transactions so that these looters and thieves can be held accountable to the law, and so that we can properly ascertain whether money stolen from VBS has been flowing to politicians and to political parties.
While the report has lined up a queue of implicated ANC elected officials and public office bearers, if it is also true that President Cyril Ramaphosa had prior knowledge of the corruption and looting at VBS, and did not act, President Ramaphosa may be criminally liable in terms of section 34 (1) the Prevention of Combatting of Corrupt Activities Act 12 of 2004 (PACCA). President Ramaphosa will answer my urgent oral question during his final Oral Question session in Parliament for 2018 on 6 November about his prior knowledge of the VBS heist.
Federal Council are resolute that those identified in Advocate Terry Motau’s ‘The Great Bank Heist’ must be charged for corruption, fraud and money laundering and if found against, spend no less than 15 years in prison.
On Tuesday the 23rd of October, the DA will roll out a day of action against every single municipality that illegally deposited money into VBS Mutual Bank. Simply put those municipal managers and mayors have flushed public money down the drain, jeopardising service delivery in those areas. We will hold both the ANC and EFF accountable for this crime.
Recently, the Auditor- General revealed that a total balance of irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure by ANC national departments and state entities has increased to R100.9 billion. Even the initial amount of R4 billion that was lost to fruitless and wasteful expenditure in 2017/8 is enough to fund the salaries of over 22 000 police officers or 21 000 nurses. This is separate to the figure we have calculated on the basis of money irregularly spent by government entities which is estimated to be over R100 billion.
The DA's offer for real change
Federal Council is in the process of ratifying policy. The two policies that were considered this weekend speak to the DA’s offer on jobs, and safety and security.
While the ANC government’s response to the recession has been decidedly undecided, Federal Council reiterated support for the DA’s decisive 7-point plan that will get the country growing if we get the following things right:
1. Dump irresponsible economic policies like the proposed nationalization of the Reserve Bank, creation of State Banks and expropriation of land without compensation;
2. Privatize, or part privatize, South African Airways (SAA);
3. End Eskom’s monopoly by splitting the power utility into separate production and distribution businesses and allow cities to boost competition and bring down costs by purchasing directly from Independent Power Producers (IPPs);
4. Introduce a fiscal austerity plan to put a hold on current spending, contain the national debt at 50% of GDP and supplement revenue shortfalls by slashing wasteful spending;
5. Cut the Cabinet to around 15 ministries;
6. Exempt small businesses with less than 250 employees from restrictive labour laws bar the basic conditions of employment; and
7. Ensure National and Provincial governments pay all outstanding invoices owed to small businesses totaling a combined R27.8 billion.
These seven measures are a roadmap to chart a lean and capable state conducive to attracting investment in a competitive and open market-driven economy.
Our agenda for reform provides a strong alternative to the worldview that more government intervention is the only solution to previous failed government intervention.
Economic offer
Unemployment is oppressing us and there is no fair access to jobs. The ANC government cares only for self-enrichment and rewarding insiders with work.
They don’t know how to create the jobs that they have failed to create for South Africans. This is not what the country was promised.
The DA’s agenda for reform is reinforced by the party’s plan to create fair access to real and long-term jobs. Our jobs plan is focused on:
Implementing a Voluntary National Service year of skills and income for school leavers;
Building jobs centres across the country that offer free-internet, information and advice to job-seekers;
Increasing opportunities for small businesses by cutting obstructions and excess regulation; and
Prosecuting and ending the practice of ‘sex for jobs’ and ‘carpet interviews’ and ‘cash for jobs’ and corruption in job allocation.
South Africa is a great country with a hard-working people willing to realise the nation’s potential. Led by a new generation of young leaders, Federal Council concurred that the DA is the only party that can bring real change that creates fair access to jobs.
Legal challenge to Dlamini and Gigaba’s appointments
The DA’s legal action against President Ramaphosa’s appointments of the Minister of Women in the Presidency, Bathabile Dlamini, and Home Affairs, Malusi Gigaba is well underway. We will be lodging papers tomorrow to review the President’s decision to appoint and maintain Dlamini and Gigaba in his Cabinet.
It is the DA’s view that this decision is irrational and unconstitutional. All exercising of executive power must be in line with the Constitution, it is our view that these appointments were not in accordance with the provisions of section 91 of the Constitution and we are confidant that we will succeed in our legal case.
DA Governments
ABSA’s commitment to making an inner-city investment of R2 billion in Johannesburg as part of its strategy to create mixed-use inner-city precincts is welcomed. This investment dovetails with Mayor Mashaba’s commitment to revitalising the inner-city area and is the largest in the Johannesburg CBD for some years. It will be focused on the redevelopment of the ABSA Towers Main building and Jewel City. This indicates renewed investor sentiment in the City of Johannesburg, will bring thousands of temporary jobs to the inner city and will create approximately 2 700 affordable housing units.
The City of Cape Town recently conducted a comprehensive review of the MyCiTi bus service. From next week, new routes to new destinations and more direct routes with fewer transfers will be implemented with 29 new bus stops, new bus stops will be introduced where routes have been extended to meet the passenger demand, some underutilized stops will no longer be served, and some of the routes will be replaced with new direct routes to popular destinations. The changes and extension of routes will see the City add another 150 000 km to the service.
In DA-led Kouga municipality, more than 1 800 title deeds were recently handed over to their rightful owners, some more than 20 years old that the previous ANC-led government just left lying around the municipal offices and DA-led municipalities like Langeberg, Overstrand, Oudtshoorn, Saldanha Bay, Mossel Bay and George recently gave more than 2 000 families legal title to their homes.
Federal Council are greatly encouraged by the thousands of jobs and affordable housing that will be enabled by the inner city investment attracted by the Mashaba administration to Johannesburg, look forward to the City of Cape Town’s rollout of dozens of new stops and routes to the MyCiTi bus service and are proud of the DA-led local municipalities’ excellent track record of ensuring that communities that were dispossessed of land have the dignity of owning a home.
With regards to fighting crime efforts, the Western Cape has recommitted itself to placing safety and security at the front and centre of the agenda. Both Alan Winde and the Dan Plato have both committed the City of Cape Town and the Western Cape government to holding the South African Police Service (SAPS) to account for policing resourcing. The Western Cape Government is exploring key governance interventions which would compel the national government to provide policing resources to deal with the rising crime levels in our communities. Despite our limited mandate, the City has made significant investment in capacitating metro police in order to keep key infrastructure such as the trains safe. The Mayor-elect and the Premier Candidate have been mandated to drive to key issues in the province. These are access to jobs and fighting crime in order to keep our communities safe.
Campaign readiness
On the ground, the DA have launched a total of 62 Campaign Groups and are close to rolling out approximately 500 campaign units across the country. These groups and units are powered by thousands of activists and volunteers who have signed up to Team One South Africa.
The focus of ground mobilisation is on recruiting more activists, delivering the message of change that builds One South Africa For All, and getting people to register to vote. DA structures countrywide are ramping up for the registration weekend on 26 and 27 January next year.
These efforts are by design disproportionately focused in Gauteng, the Northern Cape and the Western Cape, where our campaigns are nearly in full swing.
2019 Election offer
Federal Council are united behind the DA’s offer to bring change that builds One South Africa for All. Where a vote for the DA is a vote for one nation with one future, a vote for the ANC or EFF with only bring more of the same that divides South Africa further between insiders and outsiders.
South Africa is a country destined for greatness but we have veered off-track from Madiba’s ‘true north.’ There is no fair access to jobs, the tide of crime continues to rise and corruption continues to oppress us of opportunity.
The ANC is not only incapable of managing the real problems South Africans face each and every day - they do not have a clue in edgeways what these problems are. This is in large part because the ANC is the problem.
The DA’s agenda for change will:
Fight Corruption;
Fix the police service so that it honestly and professionally protects and serves South Africans;
Create fair access to real and long-term jobs;
Secure our borders; and
Speed up basic service delivery.
The Team One SA Spokespersons who are helping me spread this agenda for change across all corners of the country are Geordin Hill-Lewis (Access to Jobs), Jacques Julius (Secure Borders), John Steenhuisen (Crime), Phumzile van Damme (Corruption), Natasha Mazzone (State Capture), Makashule Gana (Basic Services), Thandeka Mbabama (Land), Luyolo Mphithi (Youth), Yusuf Cassim (Students), Nomafrench Mbombo (Women’s Network). Alongside the DA’s nine Premier Candidates whose Team One South Africa campaigns are well underway, my team has received the full backing of Federal Council.
Conclusion
Federal Council adjourned its final meeting for the year united behind the party’s vision of One South Africa for All. We know that despite our differences, there is more that unites than divides us.
The launch of Team One South Africa last month charted a blueprint to reclaim Madiba’s South African dream and bring change that builds One South Africa for All. As Federal Council looks to its first meeting for 2019, South Africans are encouraged to check their registration status ahead of January’s voter registration weekend which is the final opportunity to register to vote before the 2019 national election.
It is now clear that South Africans only have two choices in these upcoming elections. They can either vote for the ANC/EFF coalition of corruption or the DA offer for change that builds one South Africa for all.
Issued by the DA, 21 October 2018
