It is time the NC changes the channel on ANC governance

24 February 2022

Note to Editors: The following is an extract from the True State of the Province Address, recorded by DA Provincial Leader of the Northern Cape, Harold McGluwa MPL, along the banks of the Orange River. Please find attached soundbites in English & Afrikaans from Harold McGluwa, MPL. See pics here and here. 

The Northern Cape is in absolute tatters and the sad truth is that there is no magical programme or fancy plan to be implemented by the Premier, Dr Zamani Saul, that can save it. Instead, only by changing channels from the ANC’s Armageddon movie to the success story of the Democratic Alliance (DA), can we save this province.

The True State of the Northern Cape is far worse and even more unbelievable than anything you might see on an episode of “Ripley’s Believe it or Not”:

· Afterall, who would believe that in a policing precinct as extensive as Jan Kempdorp, only one out of 25 police vehicles are operational?

· Criminals are using the same modus operandi at the same location, time after time. They rob and even hijack people, like in the vicinity of the taxi rank in Kuruman, yet police fail to make any arrests.

· Drunk drivers cause accidents, at great cost to the economy and to lives, yet they are not investigated or prosecuted.

· A sewage puddle was left since 2016 to grow into a dam that now engulfs both sides of a main economic road.

· There is a road in Kakamas literally left with only a G-string sized sliver of tar covering it, and roads filled with potholes in Kimberley, despite a R500 million investment in Sol Plaatje’s infrastructure and inferior patching. And they continue to grow.

· Promises were made by a Premier that the diamond city will not deteriorate further under his watch, only for us to see it go from bad to worse.

· Municipalities lose more than 60% of their water to leaks.

· Towns regularly experience water cuts for up to 14 days at a time.

· Operations at Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe get postponed because of broken lifts.

· EPWP workers take patient’s blood pressure readings.

· Children are being left without toilets, desks, classrooms, sports fields and even teachers because officials are not doing their jobs.

· 44.7% of Northern Cape learners that were enrolled in Grade 10 in 2019 did not sit for the Grade 12 final exams in 2021?

· Schools get robbed bare during school holidays.

· Girls as young as nine are giving birth.

· One in two people in the province is jobless and more children are dying of malnutrition.

The list goes on and on.

We are living in the 21st century, not in the dark ages, yet we have become so accustomed to the exceptional failures of provincial government that they do not even shock us anymore.

We need to wise up to what is happening in the Northern Cape!

This sorry state has largely been brought about by the toxic combination of cadre deployment and corruption.

What we see is years of demise caused by putting people, who do not possess the requisite skills and expertise, into positions in government. People who care more about sustaining party loyalty and filling their own pockets than about anything else.

This ongoing and incestuous practise by the ANC has spawned dysfunction and yet it just goes on and on. We see it in Dawid Kruiper, in the security unit, and in Gamagara, where three former ANC councillors have just been appointed instead of electricians, millwrights and plumbers.

At the same time, corruption in the Northern Cape has been so precisely executed that it has hardly been exposed and we have had minimal arrests and prosecutions despite more than a decade of full-blown looting of the state.

This is largely why the Northern Cape finds itself in this position. Government resources have been stripped bare, services are malfunctioning and we have been robbed of opportunity for growth and development, and sharing in the wealth of the province by and large.

Under this lot, we face a bleak future of failing services, unemployment and poverty.

We have little to no hope that municipalities will stabilize, or that government departments will contribute towards the building of a modern, growing and successful Northern Cape. But even though we cannot just press the rewind button and undo the damage, it doesn’t mean that there is no hope for the province at all.

The state of the Northern Cape beyond 2024, is still in your hands.

We can always change the channels to this deadbeat dead end. Let us tune out of the Northern Cape Armageddon movie and tune into the Northern Cape success story by removing the ANC from the equation, saving what is left, rebuilding what is broken, and ultimately by getting government services working.

Our future lies in our hands.

Issued by Harold McGluwa, DA Northern Cape Provincial Leader, 24 February 2022