COSATU press statement on Premier Zille's speech
18th February 2011
COSATU is disappointed at the speech of W Cape Premier Zille. The speech lacks vision and the ability to inspire people to a new deal. The focus of the speech is the same old DA policy of defending white elite privileges, whilst allocating crumbs to the poor. There is no attempt by the Premier to integrate the communities as she seems to defend the present divisions and separation that exist in the Province between black and white, rich and poor.
The poverty situation of the majority of the people of the Western Cape is desperate, yet the Premier has no tangible plans to address this. The Western Cape is the most unequal province in the country yet it does not even get a mention, that inequality is the key impediment to development. Is it because if you touch inequality, then you touch white privilege; so it is allowed to flourish.
The Western Cape has the most top billing style housing and the highest proportion of shacks, but this also is not mentioned as a problem. The education system that sees every white kid having the best opportunity to succeed, whilst one out of 50 Black kids succeed is allowed to continue without change. And we then allow a system that allows the School governing body to keep poor kids out of the fancy schools through high school fees is left untouched.
There is no appreciation of the global economic realities in proposing a growth plan, which exposes a government who wants business as usual because there, white constituency flourishes in this environment, whilst the majority suffers.
This premier Zille has shown herself to be the champion of the wealthy mainly white communities of the Western Cape, whilst purposefully disregarding the real needs of the poor. The speech also attempts to bring a greater separation between the Western Cape and the Broader South Africa.
This Premier has again failed the majority of the people of the Western Cape, in the state of the Province address, which is really a plan to keep the Western Cape unequal and a playground for the elite.
Statement issued by COSATU Western Cape Provincial Secretary, Tony Ehrenreich, February 18 2011
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