Note to editors: DA Leader Helen Zille is campaigning in the Northern Cape with Patricia de Lille. This is an extract of a speech prepared for delivery this evening at the Tromp Nel Hall in Calvinia.

Fellow South Africans,

It is wonderful to be here in the Northern Cape with my friend and colleague, Patricia de Lille. As you know, Patricia is campaigning to be the Mayor of Cape Town. She has taken some time out of her busy campaign schedule to travel with me around this beautiful province.

You will remember the days, not too long ago, that Patricia and I campaigned against each other here in the Northern Cape. I am glad to say that those days are over. She is the kind of person you want to have with you rather than against you!

I like to think that we make a great team. And I like to think that the combined strength of our parties will make us a formidable force in this province. Patricia and I have set our sights firmly on winning the Northern Cape in the 2014 election. The Northern Cape is the next frontier for the DA.

This local government election is a stepping stone to winning the Northern Cape. We want to win as many municipalities in this province as we can on May 18, including the Hantam municipality. And it is a winnable municipality - the ANC got less than 40% of the vote here in the last election. With our combined strength, we have every chance of winning the election here on May 18.

For the DA, winning is never an end in itself. It is a means to an end. And that end is the opportunity to improve people's lives. We want to win in places like Calvinia because we want a chance to show what we can do in government. There is so much we can do to improve the lives of people here.

I know that one of the major problems here is unemployment. In the area under the jurisdiction of the Hantam municipality, nearly two out of every five people are without a job.

I know that John Block comes here at election time promising you jobs and food parcels and whatever else he can think of to get your vote. But you know as well as I do that the ANC will forget about you after the election.

I hear that the only people who benefit from this municipality's expanded public works programme are people with ANC connections. Sometimes the people who are given job opportunities don't even come from this area. The DA does not abuse power like this.  We want to be fair to everyone.

Expanded public works programmes under the DA are open to everybody. They are designed to empower people, not to win political favours. Just last week, the DA-governed City of Cape Town won two awards from the national government for its expanded public works programme. One award was for creating more job opportunities than any other municipality in the country - 1 618 jobs were created through 64 job creation projects in Cape Town.

Expanded public works programmes are important, but they do not create permanent jobs. To do this, your municipality must create the conditions for local businesses to grow so that they create jobs.

If the DA wins here on May 18, we will make jobs our top priority. We will work hard to make this municipality an engine of economic growth and job creation. The DA's candidate for Mayor here, as you know, is Mr Abré Fritz. He has 15 years experience in rural economic development. This is a subject he studied at university. He also has qualifications in executive municipal development.

He is a man with a plan. He has told me that, if he is elected, he will put jobs at the top of his agenda. He wants to work with local farmers to remove barriers to growth so that they can employ more people. He tells me that the Integrated Development Plan or IDP in this municipality is not a plan at all. It is just a wish-list. He wants to draft an IDP that is implementable and measurable to really improve the infrastructure in this area.

And he wants to work with emerging farmers to help them expand their businesses. If he is elected, he will set up mentorship programmes in business administration, book-keeping and the drawing up of business plans. He wants to link emerging farmers with markets overseas so that they can export their products all over the world.

He also wants to promote equity share schemes to give farm workers a stake in the farms they work on. This is a model that has empowered many farm workers in the Western Cape and we don't see why it can't work here too.

And then there is the tourism market here. This has the potential to create many thousands of jobs in this area. If he is elected, Abré will work with local businesses to develop a plan to market this area to tourists from other parts of South Africa and the world.

This focus on growth and job creation is the key to Calvinia's future. You may not see results straight away, but within five years you will notice a difference here. That is what happens in every DA-governed municipality in the country.

We call it the DA difference because it is what sets us apart from other parties. It is about getting the basics of government right. And it is about governing for all the people of a town or city, and not just those with political connections.

If you want to see the DA difference here in Calvinia, you know what to do on 18 May.

You need to vote DA.

Because the DA delivers for all!

Issued by the Democratic Alliance, April 6 2011

Click here to sign up to receive our free daily headline email newsletter