Response by Lynne Brown MPL, ANC Leader of the Opposition in the Western Cape Legislature, in response to Premier Helen Zille's State of the Province Address, February 26 2013

Every premier gets an opportunity to inspire and bring hope to a province and ALL its people before disclosing the budget and unpacking projects. This premier missed it and illustrated a spectacular lack of imagination, vision and direction.

Not only was the statement thin on policy, the one-time mayor of Cape Town, DA leader and now premier of the Western Cape proffered the citizens piecemeal offerings. Merely emulating the ANC, plagiarise others and hijacking the Nelson Mandela legacy.

The DA mimics ANC slogans while showing a disingenuous and dangerous indifference to the need for the people. The premier needs to do a reality check about her same-old-same-old approach.

Glossing over the debilitating issues of rape and other crimes, the socio-economic abuse of the poor, the realities of the working class, the purging of black staff, rural underdevelopment, and the impact of making basic education even more inaccessible shows the absence of vision.

Not only did the premier put forth cosmetic solutions mixed with pipedreams and schemes, she actually did so without shame in the face of the voices that continue to draw attention to the real state of the province.

This year the premier's address seems more like a swansong. It indicates she is heading in another direction, leaving the Western Cape abandoned to its own devices. She wraps up before she evaporates.

The Western Cape premier is moonlighting as she comes here to rest after spending her time frolicking in other provinces despite the work she has to do for the people of the province.

Evidence has been seen of how, when provincial polemics arise, the premier is moonshine and disappears like vapour before the sun, and flees elsewhere to make appearances in the front gardens of others instead of dealing with issues here in her own backyard.

Remarkably, she has more to say about the other provinces, but remains resiliently silent on salient matters here.

The questionable and elaborate history lesson we were all given was further made ludicrous with jumbled information about the regional economy.

The information jettisoned the issues of the majority withholding meaningful and sustainable solutions.

The premier tries to prove herself by referring to a so-called "better together" and a "whole of society" slogans, yet she perpetuates her inherent refugee inclination with at least four different references to people from other areas or countries that may well inculcate an intolerant and xenophobic reaction to further divide our people . Her lip service to nation building is redundant by her very words veiled with euphemisms like"in migration". When the moonshine of word-icing evaporates, only the refugee tag stays...

The Premier does not provide detail on how to deal with the scourge of rape, child abuse, Gang violence and substance abuse. The high incidence of TB, a socio-economic disease plagues the poor daily. In fact, if only the premier could head off to the media with same haste to denounce the violence our people experience in communities like she did to deny the purging of black and coloured senior staff members.

But she knows the truth: since she took office 5 heads of department including the director general were forced to leave. They were slapped with gagging orders. Disciplinary hearings and other tactics are used to get rid of highly educated professionals in the province.

In the most crucial department, social development, a DA youth member, now acts as the head of department. In that department there are several black, skilled and experienced officials - they are good enough to meet protestors and receive memoranda but not good enough to the run the department. It boggles the mind!

I will use the next few weeks to give meat to my assertion. I have listened to a number of very fearful officials on the possibility of them being fired. As their fear subsides, I trust their story would be told.

In fact her idea of all should work together, is reminiscent of the gala breakfast arranged by the farm animals... She is like the hen that volunteers eggs, while the pigs have to donate their lives to supply the bacon. This is found in the many remarks that indicate everyone else carries a bigger burden to make her ideas work, than her own contribution.

She told us we should count. Let me do that. The premier claims this DA-led government can only build a limited number of houses. She is in fact so brave as to say houses will only be built at a rate of 15 000 per year  - blithely further reducing her department's already lowered target which it has set for itself.

However, after governing for four years (if one uses her own figures) she should have delivered 60 000 units to date.  But what does this premier tell us in this regard? She boasts about her government's achievement to have built only 48 200 houses... That is about 12 000 families that did not get the houses they were promised by the DA - measured against her own estimates and targets! Where did the fourth year of building evaporate to?

With this government's own reduced home building figures there are far more people that are disappointed and without a home. Again the DA's misplaced nineteenth century philanthropic concern for the unemployed poor evaporates... and the poor are reduced to voting cows in the DA kraal!

The spin and lies even go further than just providing adequate housing, as even the so-called supply of sites only perpetuates the slums of informal settlements.

The handing over ceremonies for political point-scoring we saw around the province, such as in Witzenberg where title deeds were so-called symbolically given to people, rather than the real cart and transport ownership, smacks of gentrified untruth. Giving certificates for the show and then taking them back, is like the empty promise by an abuser to a victim to stop. Again the paternalistic mask of empathy quickly slips and glimpses of hope evaporate like fog or moonshine.

The lip service paid to the national development plan is premised on a misreading of the DA's anti-majority policies and rests solely on a parasitical understanding of a few that are permitted to suck super profits from this country. The DA just doesn't see itself as serving the whole country, but rather drives divisive actions and wedges for political gain which is tantamount to treason. In this, the refugee-as-problem mentalityfor which the DA is famous is very prominent.

The constant DA bragging and incessant boasting aimed at creating the perception of the Western Cape as being an island in an intercontinental competition is self-destructive and sick to the core. The notion that this province outshines all others is deprived of fact and figures to back it up. Materially the province has regressed since the DA took control.

According to labour market statistics for the New Growth Path year period during the third quarter of 2010 to 2013 the Western Cape slipped further behind other provinces like Gauteng, KwaZulu Natal and even Limpopo on many vital indicators - especially those pertaining to job and opportunity creation for the youth... while this premier purports to cut a better deal for the youth - all cheap and obfusating political postulation.

Let's inform the premier that Gauteng almost increased its youth jobs four times that of the Western Cape's 56 000, while Limpopo and KZN had doubled that of the Western Cape. In fact, the Western Cape trails seventh among the nine provinces with only 3% more employment figures while Limpopo leads by 20%. Most new jobs for youth were also created in Limpopo, Gauteng and Northern Cape. A regression of spectacular scope for the Western Cape that is fixated with comparing itself to other provinces! And the DA's claims continue to evaporate like moonshine - again!

The DA's dalliances with hardened criminals like gangsters and drug lords and effectively siding against law-abiding citizens, has not gone unnoticed. The collection of donations and support from figures in the underworld for the DA by prominent leaders also does not go unnoticed. It is claimed that arch criminals have the DA in their pockets - even that a high flyer like Donkey Booysen is said to get political protection from the DA as he was regularly seen in the company of certain DA leaders.

The "nanny state" has read us the riot act around all the evils in the world. It doesn't work like that, because you say so it won't change, it only changes when you empower our people to grow veggie gardens, ensure that the feeding scheme is well-balanced and that during elections when you hand out food-parcels, you consider all of your instructions. It changes when you get buy-in from the public because you have conducted enough of the raising of awareness. Start with yourselves, the DA councillors who have driven drunk or driving without a valid license.

Even more disconcerting is the recent reports about the role of DA MEC's Botha, Grant and Winde as well as some DA councillors inciting and funding violent unrest, illegal land invasion and the orchestrated stoning of councillors, public property and municipal staff in the Bitou municipality in 2007 to destabilise the ANC.

There are also serious allegations of influencing the investigation. A baby died. What Madam Premier would you say of these people in your party and all-male cabinet? Will you establish an independent investigation? There the moonshine evaporates!

This follows hot on the heels of the credibility issues plaguing the DA leader like the New Age breakfast, her utterances that there were no blacks in the Cape for over 300 years, the TBWA communications contract and the improper DA cadre deployment as well as the continuing Makhaza saga or especially the fact that no evidence substantiated the claims of corruption under ANC tenure in this province - to name a few.

This premier would not get any recognition for her performance here last Friday... The glitz, gadgets and flowers could not spruce up her underwhelming act.

As the premier has passed the age for retirement and a social pension, she could take a leaf from the book of eminent leaders and go to rest!

Issued by the ANC Western Cape, February 26 2013

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