Financial sustainability and infrastructure-led economic growth are among the priorities for the Western Cape over the next five years. This is according to Premier Alan Winde addressing the first sitting of the seventh provincial Parliament in Cape Town.
Winde says because jobs are the bedrock of building a prosperous province, all efforts will be taken to reduce the unemployment rate to below 20%.
Ensuring a job in every home, Winde say the province has the highest number of households which derive their income from a salary earner. But that his administration is committed to doing more. He says attracting investment and enabling the private sector to create jobs is key.
“We stick to our themes of jobs, of safety of dignity and wellbeing which is health and education, those are key areas of a province but within that framework, my own focus areas will definitely be water and electricity. We need to make sure that those are dealt with, making sure we are much better prepared for the disasters that come our way,”
Ensuring financial sustainability for a province which experiences population growth of 150 000 a year, he says is critical for quality service delivery. And that his administration will fight for a more equitable share of the budget in order to improve the lives of citizens.
“Our province is short-changed, we don’t get our fair share of the budget, we are the third most populous province, the fastest growing province and we only get the fifth most money. We still haven’t got money from last year’s floods from the declaration, we had a R1.1 billion cut in our budget last year because of the wage deal that is unacceptable because we have got more and more demand, so we want our fair share. We will fight for our fair share and we will also go and look for other forms of revenue. Our province hasn’t borrowed money in the past. We want to borrow money for infrastructure, specifically capital infrastructure.”
Opposition parties will have an opportunity to reply to the address on Thursday.
Some, however, feel that there was not a strong enough focus on crime.
“We welcome some of the commitments that have been made and the tone and the nature of politics of consensus and co-operation, that we welcome and we want to build on that. We want that spirit to be built on a local level to focus on the issues in mainly hung municipalities in the Western Cape, however, we need to still see during this term is the premier going to be serious about crime for example for involving communities in tackling crime. That was absent. Is the premier going to be very serious about reviving the township economy,” says ANC’s Khalid Sayed.
“The comment on infrastructure is commendable, but he didn’t say enough about crime which is a big problem in our province and job creation,” says Basil Petrus from Patriotic Alliance.
“There was nothing about crime, drugs and gangsterism. He spoke briefly on crime but there was no plan of action especially for the Cape Flats and other parts of the province and then there was nothing about school placement. He spoke briefly about schools and classrooms but what about those many students that are still unplaced across the Cape Flats,” says Aisha Cassiem from EFF.
Winde says creating safer communities remains a key priority and that the province will push ahead in its call for the devolution of policing resources.
Source: eNCA
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