Leader of the Opposition: ANC, Lynne Brown, speech on the debate of Western Cape Premier Helen Zille's State of the Province Address, Cape Town, February 23 2010

How many years does it take a society such as ours, created on the bitter foundations of 350 years of racial inequality and skewed resources, to reach the point that we no longer need to take special steps to redress the imbalances? Sixteen years?

At what point do we decide that it's no longer necessary for a government to enact interventionist, developmental policies? What measure do we use to reach this decision? Are we truly ready to say, "the playing fields are level", and get on with life? After 16 years? Is this it?

Listening to the Honourable Premier delivering her State of the Province Address last week (see here), waxing lyrical about what she termed "the opportunity society", the inescapable conclusion was that she has decided that worrying about "equal opportunity" would no longer be necessary in the Western Cape.

And I thought, "Hang on! This is our province, too." Millions of our people live in severely overcrowded backyards and horrendous informal settlements, unemployment is rife, children are malnourished in our city and some die of diahorrea. Eish!

In the opportunity society of the Honourable Premier's dreams, Cape Flats children who survive the gangsterism at their schools and in their communities, who are able to study in the dark and often the damp, who can get by despite sometimes feeling hungry, who can escape TB, might thrive.

Of course, the ANC believes with good reason that there is still a huge amount of work that lies ahead of us before we can sit back and tinker with our systems in the knowledge that all citizens enjoy equal opportunity to live their dreams. The State has the resources - and should have the conviction - to create interventions to redress the gross imbalances in quality of life. Without these interventions there will be no equal opportunities.

The Honourable Premier's address did not prioritise leveling the playfields, did not contain any detail about the delivery of services and facilities to the poor, and was therefore anti-poor in its tenor.

It is on delivery that this Western Cape Government will be judged - not eloquent speeches and conspiracy theories (and we'll return to that later). While the Honourable Premier has set out her stall on the pretence that she inherited a province in tatters, a clean sheet, so to speak, the truth tells another story.

The truth is that the Western Cape has the best Matric pass marks in the country, the problem is, it doesn't cut across racial lines, class and geographic disparities.

Higher proportion of our schools have computers than elsewhere, a higher proportion of people living with AIDS have access to ARVs, and a higher proportion of our people are employed.

If you believe that nothing has been done in the province over the past number of years you may, for instance, have been impressed by the announcement that the Western Cape Government is planning to build 12 new schools. The ANC government of the previous five years delivered 50 schools.

The Honourable Premier speaks in warm terms of the relationships the Province is forging with other spheres of government involved in housing delivery, but conspicuously fails to set any targets or disclose any actual plans. How many houses have been built over the past year or so? The ANC government of the past five years delivered nearly 73 000 homes to the poor - including several thousand on the N2 Gateway. How many homes will this administration build? Those living in inhuman, unhygienic, anti-social conditions of squalor will take cold comfort from the announced provincial focus on providing services rather than homes. This, from a government that installs toilets without walls.

The Western Cape economy grew in leaps and bounds under ANC rule, its vigor enabling us to withstand the harshest effects of the recession from which we are currently emerging. Annual growth of between three percent and six percent has led to the inclusion of black people in the economy, through initiatives such as the Red Door programme, BEE and BBBEE. The province has historically proved investor friendly, with the call centre industry and many sectors identified by the micro economic development agencies demonstrating the benefits of state intervention.

Our challenge, given the inequalities that persist in our society, should be how to spread the benefits. How do we share this economy? How do we ensure that opportunities accrue to those who need them most, including the previously disadvantaged and women? The answer, provided by the Honourable Premier last week, is: We needn't bother!

Instead of bothering about Manenberg or Gugulethu, one of the few tangibles included in the Honourable Premier's address was that the regeneration of Cape Town's CBD would be a provincial mega project. This was central to unlocking and creating wealth, she said. But what she was in fact talking about was pushing ordinary people out of the City to create way for rich people, pushing traders out of the city to make way for development, keeping the Kaapse Klopse out of the city and thus stopping their culture and traditions. It is a continuation of the apartheid trend to clear poor people and their cultural vestiges from valuable land.

The announcement of cutbacks in funding to non-profit organisations is another concern, another manifestation of a provincial government sending a clear message that partnerships with the people are of no interest. We believe that funding relationships between the state and non-profit organisations should be properly regulated and audited - and expanded, not contracted. The withdrawal of funding to community organisations is yet another example of the demise of the development state. Which organisations will lose their funding, and on what criteria? The Premier does not say.

The Honourable Premier's handling of the Lennit Max sex allegations demonstrated that we have returned to a patriarchal state in the Western Cape in which - the Premier herself, aside - women should be seen but not heard. This is the inherent danger of selecting a pale male cabinet. Having said that, the Honourable Premier allows her men little leeway, either. There seems to be an insatiable appetite for centralising power around her, with the Premier flitting effortlessly between the roles of head of the provincial administration, super-mayor of Cape Town, and MEC-of-Everything, including Speaker of this House.

Which one is she and has she no faith in the capabilities of the men she put in power?

The truth is, Honourable Premier, the challenges of our times require you to step beyond the soundbite into the harsh spotlight of reality and delivery. Speaking about banning the Presidential Cavalcade from using police lights in the province, when you know as well as I do that you have no jurisdiction on this matter, may garner you a fat headline in the liberal media, but does nothing to advance the quality of life of the vast majority of the people.

Using parliamentary privilege to attack political foes on the basis of spurious allegations may equally serve the Honourable Premier well in media terms in the short term - and it helps that she is not forced to provide any evidence. But make no mistake, it will be on delivery, not hot air, that the voters will judge this government.

The gap between rich and poor in our province is increasing, not decreasing. According to research conducted last year, the difference in quality of life in Cape Town is right up there with the widest in the world. It is hardly the time to take our foot off the developmental accelerator.

Many of my colleagues have (like me) lived in townships. We know what it's like to be on a housing waiting list. We know what it's like to live in overcrowded conditions. We've witnessed the effects of poverty and unemployment on family life. And we know what it's like to agonize over the future of sons or daughters in areas ravaged by the activities of gangsters and the ready availability of drugs such as Tik, Heroin and Crack Cocaine.

We can identify with young families who, day after day, cling to the hope that, perhaps, tomorrow they will be able to move from their backyard structure or their shack in an informal settlement to a house they can call their own.

The possibility of owning a home, having a job or simply living a "normal" life sits at the heart of the existence of tens of thousands of residents of the Western Cape. We consider it our job to bring these possibilities that they yearn for closer to reality.

The ANC in opposition in the Western Cape is committed to supporting all initiatives undertaken in our province that aim to narrow the divide and create equal opportunities for all the people. Developing opportunities for the poor will create a sustainable society for all, rich and poor. The present state of inequality is not sustainable. It is not about taking rights and privileges from one group and giving them to another. It is about creating the overarching conditions in which people have hope for the future, individual and collective hope. Anything else would be setting us on the road to disaster.

Issued by Oryx Media on behalf of Lynne Brown

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