Western Cape Legislature has an opportunity to show principle and independence from Helen Zille

The Western Cape Legislature, at the request of the African National Congress (ANC) will tomorrow at 14h00, debate the corrosive and divisive Colonial diatribe of the Premier of the Province Helen Zille.

The ANC's view is that when someone who holds such an important position in the Province, a position of great and consequential decision making, a Premier, holds a view that there is a certain level of development we would not otherwise have were it not for a particular race, it begins to question whether her decision making as a Premier, on her cabinet, on her departments, her influence on Infrastructure development and construction work, on tenders and promotions, on who gets work and who gets fired, on who rises and who falls, it begins to question whether these consequential decisions are not made with these underlying sentiments of one race superior to another.

In 2009, Premier Helen Zille put together an almost all white male cabinet to great country outrage. Was it because there were no talented black men and women that she had no women in her cabinet and had a predominantly white male team? We now know it is because she things white males are Gods gift to the Republic.

After taking over the Provincial Government, Helen Zille's government replaced over 7 black Departmental Directors with white ones, again we now know it was because she thinks only white South Africans are 'Fit for Purpose', whilst black people are fed thinly disguised colonial tropes such as “meritocracy, multiculturalism, equal opportunity and, openness; with white South Africans holding on to their unjustified enrichment and their distorted views about Blacks.

The ANC hopes that this debate will also be an opportunity not only to expose Zille's mis-education about black people during the colonial era, but to show her how ignorant, dangerous and false her misguided claims are.

The ANC will move for Helen Zille to be declared unfit for office and removed as the Premier of the Province. We hope that DA MPL's will make a principled decision with us and prove their former leader, Frederik van Zyl Slabbert wrong, when he said 'the trouble with this organisation is that you have too many politicians with balls but no brains'.

This Province is ready for a new leader.

Statement issued by Faiez Jacobs, ANC Western Provincial Secretary, 27 March 2017