- Please find attached a soundbite by John Steenhuisen and an Afrikaans soundbite by DA Spokesperson, Cilliers Brink.
- A link to the DA Manifesto can be downloaded here.
- Please see the Youtube link for the DA manifesto launch.
- Please see a link to Gwen Ngwenya’s speech.
- Pictures of the manifesto launch here, here, here and here.
Fellow Democrats, fellow South Africans,
What a day this is for the Democratic Alliance, and for our country!
Just five weeks out from an historic Local Government Election, today marks the official launch of our election manifesto and, with it, our vision for every town and city in this country under a local government that works.
We’ve been on the road for months already speaking to people about the importance of these elections, but today we are able to hold up a document that sets out exactly what we think matters in local government, and then explains how the DA will make this a reality.
This here is our blueprint for a local government that works.
I want to urge every voter who is concerned about the precarious state of their town, or who might be scared for the future of their family, or who doesn’t know whether their business can survive another five years of the status quo, to read this document.
Find in it the parts that speak to your specific concerns and then see what we propose to fix this.
We’ve tried to keep it as straightforward as possible and avoid the dry, technical language that so often accompanies such documents. We want it to be easily understood and applied to whatever the situation in your town or city may be.
We want you to visualise the potential of your town once we’ve evicted the ANC government, replaced it with a DA government and applied this blueprint for the next five years.
Now I know just how bad things are going in many municipalities today. In recent months I have visited many towns across the country and I’ve spoken to hundreds of people, and the stories they have shared with me paint a bleak picture indeed.
Ours is a country where the collapse of local government is so widespread that it is no longer even feasible to place these non-functioning municipalities under administration as there are simply too many of them.
Ours is a country where, bit by bit, ordinary citizens, businesses and civic organisations have had to start taking over the responsibilities of their failed local governments.
Where grass verges are mowed and potholes are filled by ordinary residents – people whose sense of pride and ownership of their neighbourhood won’t allow them to stand back and watch as it all crumbles.
Where water infrastructure is repaired and maintained by members of the community, because the alternative is too catastrophic to contemplate.
Where NGO’s and churches have had to step more and more into the role meant to be fulfilled by government’s social services.
Where neighbourhood watches and rural safety patrols have taken on the duties of protecting communities because the police and local law enforcement simply can’t.
And as more and more of these functions are taken off their hands, these local governments are only too happy to step back and do nothing.
Ours is a country where hundreds of municipalities can no longer collect payment from residents for services like electricity and water, and end up owing these utilities billions of rands, and are constantly on the verge of disconnection.
Ours is a country where the biggest employers in town have to beg their local governments, for years and years, to improve the provision of clean water or to maintain the road infrastructure so that the business can remain viable.
And when this doesn’t happen, and when these businesses and factories eventually have to close down or relocate elsewhere, these very same local governments turn around and beg them to stay.
We all know the story of the Clover factory in Lichtenburg that made news headlines, but that same scenario is playing out in dozens of other towns in most provinces, where the failure of local government to do the very basics of their job has hounded businesses out of town and left thousands jobless.
One by one, our small towns are becoming economic ghost towns. And the people who remain there after all the businesses have left are faced with an impossible decision: Stay there, unemployed, desperately poor and with almost no prospect of finding a job, or leave the place you call home and your family in search of an equally uncertain future in a strange city.
Those cannot be the only two options. We cannot accept the demise of all these local economies as an inevitable fate. These are things that can be changed – things that are worth fighting for.
We dare not write off any town.
But, fellow South Africans, ours is also a country where small islands of excellence still exist in this sea of local government failure and neglect.
And here I’m talking about municipalities run by the DA. Whether it’s a town like Stellenbosch, Swellendam or Mossel Bay in the Western Cape, whether it’s Kouga in the Eastern Cape or Midvaal in Gauteng, the contrast between these municipalities and those run by the ANC is staggering.
This contrast is so unmistakable that in some places you can literally see the DA difference in the road under your feet as you cross the boundary.
And it doesn’t matter which independent criteria you use – whether we’re talking clean audits in the Auditor-General’s report, whether we’re talking municipal rankings by Ratings Afrika, whether we’re talking the results of the Citizen Satisfaction Index, or whether we’re talking the unemployment numbers put out by Stats SA, DA governments consistently come out on top.
The DA governs less than 10% of South Africa’s municipalities, but the top 5 performing municipalities are all DA-run.
You may ask yourself: Why? What is it about these towns and cities that make them work when neighbouring municipalities are imploding? Why should a DA-controlled municipality offer such a vastly different outcome?
There are a number of reasons for this:
For starters, our party is obsessed with doing the basics well – streamlining and correcting our systems until they are efficient and entirely focused on solving the problem, whether this problem is collecting refuse, filling potholes, managing housing lists or keeping people safe.
We also believe in employing only fit-for-purpose individuals to government, and then demanding accountability from them. Because this is the only way to build a capable state.
We have zero-tolerance for corruption, and we have an obsession to reduce any unauthorised or irregular expenditure as low as we possibly can. In other words, to spend every cent of public money in the most efficient manner and where it makes the most impact.
We believe in harnessing the power of the whole of society to tackle our challenges. We don’t see government as an all-powerful entity dispensing its mercy, its gifts and its jobs to the people.
Government cannot create jobs – not on the scale we need. But, if approached right, government can be an enabler of potential.
It can put in place the systems, the support and the legislation that make it possible for businesses to flourish and create jobs. And it can offer individuals opportunities which they must then grasp in order to live a life of value.
But most importantly, in the DA we never forget why we do what we do. We don’t forget our oath of office and we never lose sight of the fact that the DA serves the people, not the other way round.
None of these things is rocket science. They are just the basic principles of good governance. But they are also the very things that set DA governments apart.
When you apply these principles to local government, along with a clear, long-term vision for a town or city, you get what we call the DA difference. And on the pages of this manifesto you will find this applied to every aspect of local government.
You will see that we have divided this document up into a number of sections which deal with the main functions of a local government. Each of these functions is critical if you want a municipality to work.
It starts with arguably the most important function of a local government – the provision of dependable basic services to all. And this is where the DA has put miles of clear blue water between us and ANC local governments.
Nothing has a more direct impact on people’s quality of life and their ability to live a life of dignity than good, reliable basic services, and particularly access to clean drinking and cooking water.
In this manifesto you will see how DA governments work hard to make communities water secure, and particularly in the drought-stricken parts of the country like the Eastern Cape.
Having successfully fought off Day Zero in Cape Town, DA governments are using learnings from that episode to mitigate the drought in Nelson Mandela Bay through measures such as faster leak repairs, flow restrictors, sinking boreholes and running public awareness campaigns.
You will also read here of the DA’s efforts to provide residents with a clean and hygienic environment to live in through regular waste collection, managing landfills, controlling polluting emissions and supporting waste pickers in their recycling efforts.
In the section on electricity provision, you will learn of the DA’s mission to make six pilot municipalities in the Western Cape loadshedding-proof in what they call the Energy Resilience Project.
These municipalities are putting in place measures that will enable them to procure electricity directly from suppliers and ultimately end their reliance on Eskom altogether.
You will also learn that Cape Town already manages to avoid at least one stage of loadshedding compared to the rest of the country through it’s pumped storage hydro power station at the Steenbras dam.
You will learn of our plans to improve public transport and road quality where we govern, as well as our plans to integrate public transport in metros into a one-ticket system.
You can also read about our award-winning recycled plastic road in Kouga, the thousands of potholes we’ve already filled in Tshwane and our world-class Bus Rapid Transit Systems in both Cape Town and George.
The next section in the manifesto deals with crime and safety, and although policing is a function of national government, DA governments have been working extremely hard to protect residents from the scourge of crime, and particularly gangs and drugs.
We want all South Africans to feel safe and free in their own neighbourhoods or out on their farms, and we will help protect them and take their streets back from the criminals.
Ultimately our goal is to devolve much of the policing functions from national government to competent metros and municipalities, and we will fight national government’s attempts to bring all Metro Police Departments and municipal law enforcement into one centralised police service.
We will take this fight all the way to the Constitutional Court if we must.
When it comes to the local economy and jobs, DA governments have one mission, and that is to open the doors of our towns and cities to investors and let them know that we are open for business.
We will do everything in our power to make it easier to do business in a DA-run town or city, whether this is quicker construction permits, quicker property registration or quicker electricity connection.
We also recognise the enormous contribution of informal traders to local economies and we will support this crucial sector through convenient trading sites, affordable permits and by supplying the infrastructure they need to trade.
The DA-run City of Cape Town is already ranked the top SA city in the World Bank’s “Doing Business” survey, but for us this is just the start. Our cities and towns have the potential to do so much more.
As our Cape Town Mayoral candidate, Geordin Hill-Lewis’s campaign slogan says: Cape Town works. Let’s do more.
The next big mandate of local governments is the delivery of a range of housing options – and particularly low income housing options – for a fast-urbanising population.
And while national housing budgets are being slashed, DA governments will increase housing delivery through smart collaborations with the private sector.
We will also continue to push national government to release suitable tracts of state-owned land in cities to help us deliver quality housing options close to work opportunities and major transport routes.
In the City of Cape Town there are several such projects underway that will deliver thousands of housing opportunities in central locations.
Elsewhere, the DA government in Stellenbosch has launched an innovative Housing App which applicants can use to access the database, apply for opportunities and update their info.
And across all DA governments we continue to make thousands of South Africans property owners with full title deed. This is one of the most financially empowering steps any government can take, and the DA will continue to fight for the right of all South Africans to own property.
Our manifesto ends with a section on good, clean, transparent governance and here we reaffirm our commitment to stamp out corruption, eliminate wasteful expenditure, pay all suppliers within 30 days, bill all residents correctly, conduct transparent tender processes, and appoint all officials fairly, and on merit.
Fellow South Africans, these are all things that already set DA governments apart. These aren’t the pie-in-the-sky promises of other parties’ manifestos.
We already implement these steps and we already live these values where we govern.
That’s why our posters say: The DA gets things done. And we’re the only party that can make this claim.
If you’re choosing a government to run your town or city, that is the only criteria that matters. Will they deliver?
Now, as a country, we have some big decisions to make, and we’re going to have to make them soon.
All around us the ability of the state to deliver is being steadily eroded, and this is creating a powder keg of frustration and resentment.
Over 44% of adult South Africans cannot find work.
Dozens of municipalities are already entirely dysfunctional, and many more are heading in the same direction
And while all our global peers have started their post-Covid recovery, our economy is stuck in first gear and our own recovery looks a very long way off.
Never before has the need for change been more urgent.
But the good news is that the stars are aligned for us to make history as a country.
All the elements have come together to make it possible for these elections on 1 November to become our South African Spring, where we finally step out of the shadow of a failed post-liberation government and into a new era of delivery, accountability, honesty and professionalism.
The ANC’s implosion and the dawning realisation among South Africans that they are beyond salvaging has thrown this election wide open. Our country now stands before an historic crossroads.
We need to make smart choices now – informed choices that will protect and preserve this country for our children, and their children.
This means knowing what the main contenders on the ballot paper offer. Take their manifestos and read them critically.
Ask yourself: Are these just words, or can this party back it up with actions?
One thing I can tell you is that the DA is not a party of wild, unattainable promises. We don’t fill our manifesto with every fantasy we can think of. We don’t ignore the real-world constraints of resources, budgets, personnel, historical backlogs and maintenance neglect.
Ours is a manifesto anchored in reality. A manifesto that speaks not only of what a DA government will do for you, but also of what dozens of DA governments already do for millions of people.
A record of action, and a promise of more.
The DA also isn’t a party of bygone glories. We don’t ask voters to remember what we once were, half a century ago. We don’t cherry-pick our “good story” from decades back.
The DA wants voters to judge it by what it does today. We’re a party that delivers in the present and looks to the future. Our good story is happening right now. It is happening in the metros and municipalities where voters have already made that smart choice, and it could happen in so many more.
The DA is not a party of insiders and outsiders. It doesn’t reward its inner circle and their families with powerful positions and comfortable jobs at the expense of service delivery and the rule of law.
We don’t believe in jobs for pals. We don’t believe in making government bigger and bigger until every single crony has a job but nothing ever gets done.
We don’t deploy cadres who know nothing about running a government, and only know how to extract every last cent for themselves.
We don’t paralyse the state. We constantly build the state to be more efficient, more responsive, more capable.
The DA is not a party that believes in a powerful government that controls every aspect of society. That idea has died out long ago throughout the world.
We believe that the best results are always achieved through collaboration, and by decentralising power and control so that those who know the most about a problem are tasked with solving it.
Sometimes this will require of local or provincial governments to take on some of the responsibilities where national government is not up to the task.
We can no longer simply accept that functions such as policing, commuter rail and electricity provision should remain the sole function of a national government that clearly cannot do the job.
We cannot stand by while people suffer the effects of these failures.
Our job is to serve the people who elected us, and going forward that will mean testing the reach of local and provincial governments’ powers in order to look after the interests of the people.
The DA also believes in a society where government is a partner and an ally to citizens, to families and to businesses, and not the sole provider of all things to everyone.
That is why you will also read, in each section of this manifesto, that our offer speaks not only about the rights of citizens, but also of their responsibilities. Because successful societies are those where people take responsibility for their choices and their actions.
The DA is not a party that counts on racial solidarity to secure votes. We don’t say to people: you should only vote for someone that looks like you, or someone that speaks your language, or someone who shares your culture or religion.
None of those things matter when it comes to delivering the kind of government that can revive our towns and cities and breathe life into their dying local economies. None of those things are the qualities that make for efficient, accountable government.
But when a party has nothing else to offer, it’s not hard to understand why they would appeal to emotional issues like race and identity.
Our project in the DA is much bigger than that. We’re not here to divide people up into little boxes of sameness.
We will never be part of this dangerous game of turning South Africans against each other – of creating suspicion and resentment, and telling people that someone has to lose in order for them to win.
If our country is to recover and prosper, it can only be as a single nation focused on a common goal. That must be our country’s mission.
But above all, the DA is a party that gets things done.
We’re a party that not only has a vision and a plan, we’re also a party that does what it says it will do. And in local government, where the impact of service delivery makes such an instant difference to people’s lives, that is all that matters.
That is why I am so proud to lead the DA in these elections, and so confident to offer up this manifesto as proof of what our party can bring to even more towns and cities after 1 November.
For the first time ever, the DA has a candidate in every single ward in the country. We have made it possible for every eligible voter to make the right decision in five weeks’ time.
Let us now go out there and take back our towns and our cities.
Let us replace the corrupt with the capable, and desperation with hope.
Let us vote for the only party big enough to bring change, and the only party big enough to keep the ANC and EFF out of your town.
Let us vote for five, uninterrupted years of service delivery. And, only if you’re satisfied with those five years, another five after that.
Let us breath some life back into these wonderful towns across the length and breadth of South Africa that so many of us call home.
And let us choose, as our local governments, the only party that can honestly say: We get things done.
Let us all go out and vote for a DA government on 1 November.
Viva, DA! Viva!