Leave your party membership cards at home - DA governments will be there for you, whoever you support
28 July 2016
To those fellow South Africans not yet living under DA government, I want to assure you today that if you lend us your vote for just five years and give a DA mayor a chance on 3 August 2016, you will never need to show your party membership cards when you seek services and apply for job opportunities.
Your political affiliation is your choice, and it is your right. The DA will defend that right because it goes to the heart of our vibrant democracy.
But let me be clear: that card must never, ever be used to determine whether you can access an important service owed to you or apply for a job opportunity that you should have a fair chance of getting.
That, sadly, is not what is happening in municipalities across South Africa today. ANC administrations and their councillors would rather see your membership card, than your CV. They want to know how you can help them, instead of how they can help you.
From accessing an EPWP job opportunity, to getting onto a housing waiting list - bribery, corruption and abuse of the most vulnerable members of our society is effectively the ANC’s service delivery and job creation strategy.
There will be no place for this ANC strategy in your local government if you elect us for just five years. Those who bribe and manipulate and take advantage of our people for their own ends will be fired. Finish en Klaar.
The DA is committed to a fair government that delivers for all.
That is why in the DA-run City of Cape Town we introduced a randomised system for EPWP job opportunities. This means that every person has a fair chance of accessing this important programme – which was crucially designed to fight poverty and ensure skills development in our communities.
That is why we also opened up housing lists, so that members of the public could see where they are on the list. They will never have to pay a bribe, because the system is transparent, open and fair.
And that is why we prioritise service delivery to the poor. We do not need you to tell us who you support to get access to free sanitation, refuse-collection, electricity and water. We in fact provide 100% free services to indigent households, so much so that the ANC national government itself has said that we are “too generous”.
After centuries of unfairness being the very foundation of our nation, and with so much more to do to tackle the legacy of Apartheid, we will not allow another front of inequality to be constructed in our country.
That is why the DA says, leave your party membership cards at home after 3 August – DA governments will not want them; you will not need them.
Where the DA governs, we have made progress through clean governance, service delivery and job creation. It’s time to bring this honest government to the rest of the country. It is this type of government that will bring about the change needed to deliver better services, stop corruption and create jobs. It is this change that will help move our country forward again.
Issued by Anneke Scheepers, DA Western Cape Media Manager, 28 July 2016
