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These losses also raise questions about the Premier’s “Growth for Jobs” plan – launched in July 2023 – which promised economic growth and rising employment based on investment in infrastructure and focusing on services. In the first quarter of 2024, construction and services were the sectors that shed the most jobs.
Next, the Premier also committed to ensuring that each and every resident can live a dignified life through better education. But, under his watch, the Western Cape’s educational outcomes have declined so much that the Western Cape has shifted from being a top-performing province for matric results to one of the worst-performing provinces.
Most importantly, the Premier must account for the diabolical impact of his decision to defund education (and health) by R1 billion.
That R1 billion, taken from education and health, was pushed into the Premier’s Western Cape Safety Plan – which promised to halve the murder rate in the ten worst crime hot spots in the Province.
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While we can expect the Premier to find a way to celebrate the LEAP Officers plan, we believe he must account for its failure. The overall murder rate has gone up, year on year, in the priority police precincts where the LEAP officers have been deployed.
Even though the Western Cape Safety Plan recognised that spatial segregation and unequal infrastructure development provide a fertile breeding ground for criminal activity in under-resourced areas, the Safety Plan has focussed exclusively on boots on the ground.
Looking forward, we would urge the Premier to abandon his bad habit of making bold announcements that he has no ability or plans to implement.
He must tell the people of the Western Cape how his government plans to address the housing crisis.
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He must announce his plans to release provincial public land for public good including the provision of well-located affordable housing.
He must justify the continued defunding of education and health to fund a safety plan that is not working.
He must tell us how he plans to ensure that the Western Cape’s economy grows in a way that meaningfully reduces unemployment, especially for unskilled and semi-skilled unemployed residents.
In short, it’s time to focus on those who need government’s intervention and support the most.
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That means he will have to focus on those trapped in poverty, in informal settlements, in back yards, unemployed and too often overlooked.
Issued by Brett Herron, GOOD Secretary-General & Member of the Western Cape Provincial Parliament, 30 July 2024
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