ANC says DA's plan deceives and deflects
The Western Cape ANC says the DA's "new" economic growth plan is generic and without much initiative or imagination. It is not a serious plan to deal with prevailing apartheid legacies as it is largely trying to copy-cat existing tendencies and conserve comfort zones.
Western Cape ANC secretary Songezo Mjongile says the plan lacks courage and is such that the poor will remain largely coloured and African people while the rich stays predominantly white.
"The test for the DA's commitment to bring about real changes in our country can be measured where it has governed for several years now in the Western Cape provincial government and a number of municipalities. In government the brand of DA has become that of maladministration like improper DA cadre deployment and regression. This is evident in the fact that only two municipalities received clean audits and even its flagship administration in Cape Town and the provincial government regressed in the opinion of the Auditor General.
"The double standard DA preaches one thing, but practice proves it is not committed to real transformation and social change. Not at government level and neither in socio-economic conditions under its rule. Integration is the one critical thing the DA evades as less integration took place in communities under the DA. The former apartheid spatial divide in the Western Cape remains intact and the poor coloured and African people remain excluded from socio and economic amenities, with people in rural and farm areas the most marginalised.
"In practise the DA closed Red Doors, advice centres and services critical to small and medium enterprises - especially in poor areas for start-up businesses. The DA failed to meet its targets on houses and built less than promised which would have created necessary social capital. The DA has also cut funding to NGO's providing essential services to the vulnerable in our society. It is perceived to be at war with the poor! The closure of poor schools further confirms the DA does not care about the poor!
"Poor coloured and African people in the Western Cape and Cape Town still spend more of their wages on transport than buying food. To make matters worse, the DA also plans to close rural clinics where the poor desperately need essential health services, while the disastrous dispensing of life saving medicine to the poor remains chaotic. This point to the DA's aim to maintain the apartheid status quo and merely want to create a shadow economic plan consisting of deceiving and deflecting strategy to hide the DA's failures to finally break free from its old mould!"
Mjongile says the ANC maintains the key challenge facing the province is to build a non-racial Western Cape with a clear plan on how to redress social economic imbalances. Transformation should be central in any meaningful programme to redress these. The DA would do better to lead by example and first show here in the province it can truly deal with the challenges, before pontificating at a national level in a cheap politically shot at misleading the voters.
Statement issued by Songezo Mjongile, ANC Western Cape provincial secretary, July 30 2012
Click here to sign up to receive our free daily headline email newsletter
