WCPP opening: Premier Winde must learn from his first-term failures and show investment in those who need it most

30 July 2024

The Premier of the Western Cape must account for the failure to deliver on many of his promises when he opens the Provincial Parliament on Wednesday, 31 July 2024.

Tomorrow Alan Winde will present his government’s plans for his second term as Premier after his first address in 2019 when he identified four priorities and committed himself to deliver on these. 

To start, the Premier promised “a job in every home” built on a provincial economy that would grow by 2.5% per annum. The Provincial economy has grown by about 1.1% per annum, less than half of his government's target, and unemployment continues to trap far too many people in poverty.  

In the first quarter of 2024, the Western Cape lost the highest number of jobs of all nine provinces, losing a net total of 17000 jobs in one quarter.  

These losses also raise questions about the Premier’s “Growth for Jobs” plan – launched in July 2023 – which promised economic growth and rising employment based on investment in infrastructure and focusing on services. In the first quarter of 2024, construction and services were the sectors that shed the most jobs.

Next, the Premier also committed to ensuring that each and every resident can live a dignified life through better education. But, under his watch, the Western Cape’s educational outcomes have declined so much that the Western Cape has shifted from being a top-performing province for matric results to one of the worst-performing provinces.  

Most importantly, the Premier must account for the diabolical impact of his decision to defund education (and health) by R1 billion.  

That R1 billion, taken from education and health, was pushed into the Premier’s Western Cape Safety Plan – which promised to halve the murder rate in the ten worst crime hot spots in the Province.  

While we can expect the Premier to find a way to celebrate the LEAP Officers plan, we believe he must account for its failure. The overall murder rate has gone up, year on year, in the priority police precincts where the LEAP officers have been deployed.  

Even though the Western Cape Safety Plan recognised that spatial segregation and unequal infrastructure development provide a fertile breeding ground for criminal activity in under-resourced areas, the Safety Plan has focussed exclusively on boots on the ground.

Looking forward, we would urge the Premier to abandon his bad habit of making bold announcements that he has no ability or plans to implement. 

He must tell the people of the Western Cape how his government plans to address the housing crisis.  

He must announce his plans to release provincial public land for public good including the provision of well-located affordable housing. 

He must justify the continued defunding of education and health to fund a safety plan that is not working.

He must tell us how he plans to ensure that the Western Cape’s economy grows in a way that meaningfully reduces unemployment, especially for unskilled and semi-skilled unemployed residents.

In short, it’s time to focus on those who need government’s intervention and support the most. 

That means he will have to focus on those trapped in poverty, in informal settlements, in back yards, unemployed and too often overlooked.

Issued by Brett Herron, GOOD Secretary-General & Member of the Western Cape Provincial Parliament, 30 July 2024