The DA’s Midvaal story will soon be the Gauteng story

21 May 2016

Note to Editors: The following remarks were made by the DA Leader at the launch of the Midvaal Manifesto at the Sicelo Sports Complex in Midvaal, Gauteng. The DA Leader was joined by the Mayor of Midvaal, Bongani Baloyi.

Mayor Baloyi

People of Midvaal

My fellow South Africans

Good morning, Dumelang, Goeiedag, Bagaetso,

It’s great to be standing here in the bluest corner of Gauteng.

This place, the municipality of Midvaal, is not the biggest municipality in the country. Or in Gauteng, for that matter.

It is not big by size, and it is not big by population. In fact, it is dwarfed by the three large metros here in Gauteng.

By all rights, Midvaal shouldn’t really be a big deal, but it is.

You see, it is a big deal because it is a lone DA-run municipality in a sea of ANC failures. And this little municipality is proving to be a major thorn in the side of the ruling party.

Midvaal is that one light that just won’t go out when everything else has gone dark.

It is the David amongst the Gauteng Goliaths that just doesn’t know when to give up.

I suspect most days the ANC wishes they could make Midvaal go away. But I have bad news for them: Midvaal is here to stay. The DA is here to stay.

This municipality is the DA’s foot in the door in Gauteng. And once you have a foot in the door, you keep it there. You carry on pushing until the door is forced open.

That is why Midvaal is such an irritation to the ANC. As long as we have our foot wedged in the door here, the rest of Gauteng can peek inside.

They can look into Midvaal and see what happens inside a DA-run municipality.

And when people do this, it reminds them of what they don’t have in their own municipalities.

Governing Midvaal – and governing it well – has allowed us to put our money where our mouth is and demonstrate the DA difference.

We have shown the people of Midvaal that the DA can deliver the best access to basic services in the province. 

We have shown the people of Midvaal that the DA can run an honest and efficient local government with clean audits and little waste.

We have shown the people of Midvaal what it means to invest in facilities like sports equipment, libraries, community halls and clinics.

But most importantly, we have shown the people of Midvaal that the right local government can play a massive role in creating jobs.

When Stats SA released its latest job numbers two weeks ago, the big jump in unemployment shocked even those who were expecting an increase.

Well over a third of our country’s working population cannot find jobs. And the average here in Gauteng isn’t much less.

But then you get to the municipality of Midvaal and you find an unemployment rate that’s less than half the rate of the rest of the province.

Initially those numbers don’t seem right. But believe me, they are. When it comes to creating jobs, Midvaal towers over the rest of the province.

Not only is the unemployment rate here far, far lower than elsewhere in Gauteng, but Midvaal also has a much smaller number of discouraged jobseekers than the rest of the province.

In other words, even those in Midvaal without jobs haven’t given up hope of finding one. And that is one of the biggest indicators that a local economy is working.

By doing the basics well – by running a clean operation and investing heavily in infrastructure – the DA has made Midvaal an investor’s dream.

Because investors want two things: They want stability and they want to know that they have a partner in government, and not an obstacle.

If you haven’t realised this – and if you haven’t realised that new small and medium enterprises are where most new jobs will come from – then you cannot dream of tackling unemployment.

The DA government in Midvaal knows this only too well, which is why they worked hard to attract investors like Heineken, BSI Steel, Paramount Trailers and many others to the municipality.

And with these companies came thousands of precious jobs. Jobs that brought hope and dignity for thousands of local families.

That’s what you get when your local government has its priorities straight.

Those are the facts, and the facts only make the ANC look bad. So they try to steer clear of facts.

Instead, they fall back on the only two strategies they have left: reminding us of their fast-fading history, and trying to turn us against each other based on our race.

When is the last time you heard them talk about the future? About their plans for this country, or for your community? About their plans to help create jobs?

But it seems even the ANC can’t ignore the facts forever.

So let me use this opportunity to offer them some more facts:

On 3 August, we will increase our majority here in Midvaal, under the steady and capable leadership of Mayor Bongani Baloyi.

On the same day we will push the ANC to below or around 50% in the metros of Tshwane and Johannesburg.

It is at this point that we will go from having a foot in the door to shoving the whole door wide open and bringing DA-led local governments to more parts of Gauteng.

We will do the same in Nelson Mandela Bay, in the Eastern Cape, by which time the blue wave will become a blue tsunami.

Come 2019, enough people will have experienced the DA difference where they live to vote this corrupt government of Jacob Zuma out of office for good.

And then begins our hard work of undoing the damage and turning our country around.

I, for one, cannot wait to roll up my sleeves and get stuck in.

But first we have a local government election to win. And I’m counting on you to help us get there.

Today it’s Midvaal. Tomorrow it’s Gauteng. And very soon this country will have a DA government.

Thank you.

Issued by the DA, 21 May 2016