The address below was delivered by the DA Leader, John Steenhuisen, during a media briefing in Cape Town this morning.
Link to the live recording of the briefing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riR4c6trhvo
Good morning
The DA is Delivering
I want to use this opportunity, before the President makes his State of the Nation address tomorrow, to set out what the DA is doing to turn South Africa around, but also explain how we are pushing the ANC in government to do more, faster.
Unless the GNU urgently implements policies that drive economic growth and enable job creation, South Africa will fail. The hopes, livelihoods and security of the South African people are on the line. Those are the stakes.
That is why the DA decided to make growth and jobs our simple, overriding objective in the GNU. And we are delivering in the ministries we run.
Agriculture
In Agriculture, I am driving a growth and jobs agenda in four ways:
Firstly, I am reviewing and reforming legislation and regulation that is outdated or impedes the growth of the sector.
Last year at the Forum on China Africa Cooperation, protocols were signed to expand trade in dairy, beef and wool. This as part of a concerted and ongoing effort to improve market access for our agricultural products.
Just yesterday, I announced the reopening of the export of apples to Thailand, which had been closed for 16 years. This market expansion will have profound implications for growth, and jobs.
Ongoing efforts are underway to ensure South Africa remains part of the African Growth and Opportunity Act, which gives us preferential access to the US market.
Providing much more effective support to farmers to enable access to finance is essential if we are to expand the number of farmers in South Africa, and in so doing improve food security.
A big focus is to bring private sector management into Cape Town’s port. This port is essential for the export of agricultural goods, and we need to ensure its proper functioning.
Public Works and infrastructure
Our Public Works and Infrastructure Minister, Dean McPherson is turning South Africa into a construction site. He is using Infrastructure South Africa to pilot a new approach to deliver critical infrastructure in 4 municipalities, and will roll this programme out to 18 more once the pilot is done.
He is fast-tracking 82 Strategic Integrated Projects worth R437 billion, with a focus on transport, water, energy, and housing.
He has also attracted hundreds of millions of Rands in private sector interest to redevelop dilapidated government-owned buildings, and will expand the programme after the first round of 27 has been completed. This is a move to ensure that public assets are used for public good.For far too long, government projects have failed to meet deadlines, or have run severely over budget, due to corruption, and the involvement of the construction mafia, but their days are numbered.
Home Affairs
At Home Affairs, Leon Schreiber has rewritten South Africa’s visa regime to enable a massive inflow of skills, with all the job creation benefits that follow.
Even more boldly, he is now digitising Home Affairs in its entirety. South Africans can now look forward to:
- Doorstep delivery of passports and Smart IDs;
- A Home Affairs presence in thousands of bank branches across South Africa;
- A modern Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) system to enable secure online digital application, adjudication and communication of all visa outcomes;
- And a secure digital ID system to eliminate identity fraud, drive financial inclusion, eliminate waste and duplication in government services, and revolutionise the way citizens interact with government.
The economic knock-on effects of a properly run Department of Home Affairs will give people a faster, easier route into the economy and finally put an end to ridiculous requirements that make it almost impossible for skilled workers from overseas to bring their expertise to help drive jobs and growth in South Africa.
The border management authority’s use of drones has seen a 215% increase in arrests of people illegally entering south Africa over the past festive season, which shows the success of digital technology.
Communications and Digital Technologies
Through the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies, Solly Malatsi is driving an ambitious plan to get cheap smartphones with fast internet connections into the hands of millions of poor South Africans.
By 2029, he wants the majority of South Africans to be connected, up from just 14.5% in 2023.
World Bank research shows that, on average, every 10% increase in broadband penetration results in 1.21% GDP growth
Environment, Forestry, and Fisheries
Dion George at the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment is implementing measures to empower coastal communities through sustainable fisheries management.
The Department is advancing policies to support small-scale fishers and improve the regulation of aquaculture and commercial fishing industries. In particular 12 proclaimed fishing harbours have been identified as coastal economic hubs, providing opportunity for growth and jobs to the communities they serve, contributing to improved food security.
In a move to help small scale fishers, the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment has allowed subsistence fishers to catch 36% more of legal species. This will reduce the cost of living burden on these households and improve food security, whilst not compromising sustainability.Securing financing to support environmental priorities is crucial for long-term sustainability.
The Department is developing innovative financing mechanisms to attract both public and private investment in conservation, eco-tourism, and environmental infrastructure. The National Biodiversity Economy Strategy is projected to generate 397,000 jobs and inject R127 billion into the economy annually by 2036.
Education
In Education, Siviwe Gwarube, despite managing an on-going funding crisis that can only be resolved by growing the economy so that it generates the money we need to fund education fully, is driving reforms aimed at improving outcomes.
A strategic reorientation of the education system towards early learning, which is the most important phase in a child’s education. She launched the Social Compact for early childhood development, aiming for universal access to quality early childhood development.
This effort has raised nearly R600 million to establish an Outcomes Fund, which will provide early childhood development services to around 100,000 children and improve care quality in 1,500 early childhood development programmes over the next three years.
Minister Gwarube has operationalised the National Education and Training Council of experts, which will advise her on the best way to drive time on task and better education outcomes, making sure teachers are in class, doing their jobs.
She has launched an online tool that allows the education sector to identify pit latrines, so that we can eradicate these wherever they are. Siviwe will also produce norms, standard and regulations that make it impossible to undermine language rights in schools.
The ANC in the GNU needs to embrace rapid economic reform
This February, our government met to finalise the Medium-Term Development Plan. This plan informs the budget, and the budget guides government’s program of action.
While the DA is delivering growth and jobs in our portfolios, we continue to push the ANC to embrace with urgency the economic reforms South Africa desperately needs.
There is an alarming lack of urgency in the ANC. We have pushed the ANC to implement pro-growth, pro-jobs reforms through the Medium Term Development Plan process, and we have pushed the President to announce such reforms during his State of the Nation Address. They include:
Fiscal Discipline & Debt Management:
The money we have to spend on paying for our debt is reducing the amount of money we have for essential services and currently consumes 21% of the budget. If we cannot bring debt down to below 70% of GDP those borrowing costs will capsize the entire fiscus. To avoid this catastrophic eventuality, the GNU needs to:
- Commit to a credible plan to reduce government debt and then stick it to. And the sticking to it part is the part that matters!
- End bailouts to failing state-owned enterprises and begin the phased privatisation of non-essential SOEs, redirecting funds to critical economic infrastructure and service delivery.
- Implement a strictly managed spending review across government departments, ensuring measurable outcomes for allocated budgets, and eliminating programmes that are duplicated or lack impact.
Pro-Growth Economic Reforms
South Africa cannot cut, tax or borrow our way to a better future. The only credible, sustainable path forward is to achieve much more rapid economic growth. And that means having the political will to drive reforms forward with real urgency. The programme should include:
- Fast-tracking reforms in network industries, in particular energy, logistics and telecoms, to enhance efficiency and private sector participation including very specifically the concessioning of the ports at Cape Town and Richard’s Bay,
- We need to make it easier to do business in South Africa. We need to cut red tape and compliance burdens which make South Africa difficult to do business with. The World Bank has offered to help us (at no cost) and we should snap up its offer.
- Removing tariffs on all goods that are not produced in South Africa and reviewing all master plans to remove obstacles to growth and jobs.
Public Sector Efficiency & Corruption Crackdown
Growth depends on a public sector that delivers services efficiently without corruption. To this end we need rapidly to:
- Strengthen procurement transparency and ensure that public procurement is decentralised to curb corruption.
- The new Public Procurement Act includes worrying provisions that will entrench opportunities for corruption by centralising power in a single point. The President needs to ensure steps are taken to secure value for money in the public procurement process.
- We must embrace technology, and implement digital transformation across government services to reduce bureaucratic inefficiencies, opportunities for corruption and costs.
But the benefits of digital transformation across all government services go beyond only that:
This would ensure:
- universal access to important documents like ID cards.
- Financial inclusion by being able to open bank accounts.
- Elimination of fraudulent payments at places like SASSA and NSFAS.
- It would also help combat identity theft and fraud.
- We will have improved tax collection, more secure borders, and fewer piles of paperwork which consume unnecessary time, and increasing the risk of loss and fraud.
This a crucial need, and one we are deeply committed to, as can be seen by the digital transformation led by Leon Schreiber in Home Affairs.
Energy Security & Infrastructure Development
The period without load-shedding has been stabilising for our economy, so load-shedding’s recent return has jeopardised that stabilisation and emphasises the urgent need for reforms that will ensure the entire energy sector functions to drive growth.
That means expediting private sector participation in power generation and transmission to break Eskom’s monopoly.
It also means ensuring a clear timeline for both the vertical and horizontal unbundling of Eskom and removal of regulatory barriers to a competitive energy market.
At the same time, we need urgently to accelerate infrastructure investment with public-private partnerships (PPPs) in transport, water, and logistics – all with specific timelines.
Reimagining Black Economic Empowerment
As a starting point, the ANC should reevaluate its approach towards redressing the historical injustices of the past. The current approach has favoured the politically connected at the expense of the vast majority of South Africans who find themselves languishing in dire poverty. This requires an alternative mode of redress which moves away from direct ownership solely and allows businesses to invest in the communities they operate in. This opens opportunities for small businesses to plug into their value chain.
Labour Market Reforms
Unemployment is the number one challenge facing South Africans. We need to reform our labour laws to make it easier to hire young, unskilled, and semi-skilled workers. One way to achieve this is through reducing the power of bargaining councils to extend wage agreements to small businesses that are not even in the room when these decisions are made.
Small businesses present us with an excellent opportunity to create labour absorptive economic growth and we need to do everything in our power to enable them to do so.
If we are serious about addressing this crisis, then we need to get more South Africans into jobs and less in the unemployment queues.
National Health Insurance
In addition to the success we have had in our own portfolios, we have also argued strongly against the NHI in its current form, and I have provided the President with a number of constructive alternatives.
In particular, we have received an undertaking that provisions which would cause the termination of private medical aids have now been taken out of the government’s Medium-Term Plan. [I want to be clear: We are insisting that Private Medical Aids must remain as they are, separate from any government scheme. We look forward to working with the President and the Ministerial Advisory Committee to put in place alternatives to the NHI in its current form that will provide all South Africans with access to quality healthcare, regardless of their socioeconomic background.
Expropriation Act
Finally, I would like to clarify some misconceptions on the DA’s position on the Expropriation Act. The protection of private property rights is the cornerstone of any economy. The DA has always supported this and fought hard against any amendment to Section 25 of the Constitution since 2018. The DA is strongly of the opinion that the Act is unconstitutional and our view has not changed.
We will continue to use GNU structures to mount our opposition to the law, from within government, as was announced at a press conference on 25 January.
We will approach the courts, arguing that this Act is indeed procedurally and substantively unconstitutional.
As long as Dean Macpherson, or any other DA representative, is Minister of Public Works and Infrastructure, we will be able to mount protection for South Africans through the minister responsible for the Act’s implementation. However, that situation cannot be guaranteed forever. It provides short-term relief, but broader solutions are needed.
Property rights are the bedrock of our economy. Where there is doubt about property rights, it won’t be good for jobs and growth. This Act must go back to parliament.
The DA’s approach to the future of the GNU
8 months ago, we entered the GNU for two reasons: first, to block the EFF and MK from power; second, to turn South Africa’s economy around.
South Africa today is immeasurably better for having the DA in government. And so we will continue to fight inside this government for more growth, and for more jobs, and to block the ANC when it seeks to cause the country serious, lasting damage.
We may not always get our way on critical policy issues that South Africa so desperately needs in order to grow. However, you can be assured that the DA will continue to fight for the reform agenda to generate economic growth and create jobs. All we ask of you, is that you strengthen our hand by giving us more say in the government by voting DA.
Do not be under any illusion, the breakers are in the wings, ready to drive the radical policies to drive our country backwards. In contrast, the DA is the stable anchor in this GNU. South Africa needs the steady hand and experience of the Democratic Alliance to keep the country moving in the right direction. We may not always get our way on critical policy issues, but we will fight tirelessly for the reform agenda of economic growth and jobs.
Thank you.