DA welcomes GOOD’s support for our proposal on Acacia Park

21 September 2021

Please see below a map of Acacia Park and the surrounding national government-owned land:

The Democratic Alliance (DA) welcomes the announcement made earlier today that GOOD, a junior coalition partner in the ANC national government, supports the DA’s call to release land owned or leased by the military – presumably including Acacia Park – for housing.

In a statement released this morning in response to the DA’s ongoing efforts to force the release of Acacia Park to provide housing for the people rather than politicians, GOOD’s Brett Herron states that “The GOOD Party agrees with the DA that the old military bases in Cape Town, or parts thereof, would be helpful if they were turned over to housing.”

The DA has specifically called for this process to start with the release of Acacia Park, which is a move-in ready social housing project currently occupied only by a handful of Members of Parliament, but our call to provide housing to the people rather than politicians has been callously rejected by the Minister of Public Works in the ANC government, Patricia de Lille.

Since De Lille is also the leader of GOOD, this begs the serious question of whether De Lille is now openly defying her party by refusing to agree with the DA’s call to release Acacia Park and other land owned or leased by the national government? Given that De Lille also serves as the Minister for Public Works in the ANC government, does this mean that she would rather defy her own party and abandon the people of Cape Town in order to comply with the ANC’s long-standing efforts to undermine housing delivery in Cape Town?

While we welcome GOOD’s decision to follow our lead on this issue, the DA urges the GOOD party leadership to urgently intervene in De Lille’s apparent refusal to help the people of Cape Town. With GOOD now backing the DA’s call, it appears that De Lille is the only one preventing the release of Acacia Park to provide housing for the people rather than politicians. The DA will not relent in our quest to secure these mega properties owned or leased by the ANC national government for the benefit of the people of Cape Town.

Issued by Geordin Hill-Lewis, DA City of Cape Mayoral Candidate, 21 September 2021