Dying diggers of Namaqualand need saving
| by Andrew Louw, MPL – DA Northern Cape Provincial Leader |
| Date: 23 June 2020 |
| Release: Immediate |
| The Democratic Alliance (DA) in the Northern Cape hopes to see the needs of the Northern Cape being met when the Minister of Finance, Tito Mboweni, tables his Special Adjustment Budget tomorrow. The current public health crisis continues to wreak socio-economic havoc and so we need the budget to restore resilience. We need the budget to boost residents’ ability to bear burdens imposed by the pandemic, to broaden support services, and to bankroll our battle against the coronavirus.As its first priority, the Special Adjustment Budget needs to redirect sufficient resources to the Northern Cape health sector. Provincial public health care has languished from years of chronic underfunding, defective infrastructure management, surging medico-legal claims, and deficiencies in human resource management. The result is a system which is ill-equipped to combat the coronavirus effectively.Funding must be allocated for the staff, goods, and services required in the frontline of the fight against the coronavirus. This includes everything from the appointment of staff needed to enhance provincial testing capacity and to roll out mass campaigns to the procurement of specialized equipment and the provision of temporary mobile clinics when facilities are shut for decontamination.Secondly, the Special Adjustment Budget needs to buy a bigger social safety net for the Northern Cape. The majority of learners have not returned to school and those who depend on school-based feeding schemes are missing out on their daily meals. With the expanded unemployment rate hovering around 40% even before lockdown began and before households suffered massive income losses, many parents simply cannot afford to put food on their families’ tables.Although we appreciate attempts to alleviate the burdens of hunger, we need more than food parcels to protect vulnerable families. Social support services must be broadened through interventions like increased social welfare grants, additional appointments of social workers, and the zero-rating of essential foods to make meals affordable for low income households.Economic participation offers the only lasting escape from poverty, so the Special Adjustment Budget’s third priority must be to boost the SMME sector. The provincial tourism sector was earmarked as a potential growth area at the start of the sixth administration, but losses sustained during the lockdown shows that it will no longer serve as an effective catalyst of growth without economic restructuring. SMMEs need support to survive, such as cheaper and more reliable electricity supply. To reduce administrative burdens, SMMEs should be exempt from agreements reached by bargaining councils and governments must stop policies such as expropriation without compensation or the prescription of assets which threatens the economic health of everyone.The Special Adjustment Budget is ultimately an ideal opportunity to boost residents’ resilience against the socio-economic impact of the pandemic. Many methods can be chosen to broaden support services, to restructure the economy, and to put up a better fight against the coronavirus.For the sake of the Northern Cape, these methods must be implemented sooner rather than later. |
| Media Enquiries |
| Andrew Louw, MPLDA Northern Cape Provincial Leader082 383 6914 Tharina WhittakerResearcher071 251 5558 |
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