Housing audit needed to address access, accountability
21 June 2016
Release: immediate
While unemployment levels remain unacceptably high, the DA is troubled by the tendency of local government to stunt economic growth instead of advancing it.
Recently DA MPL, Boitumelo Babuseng, paid witness to an incident in Galeshewe, Kimberley, whereby a popular carwash and “chesanyama”, was harassed by SAPS members who threatened to close the business without any legal basis. Babuseng had to intervene to stop the arbitrary conduct of the SAPS members, who claimed they were instructed by a Sol Plaatje municipal official to close the said business. This is despite another carwash operating without a permit next to this business.
It cannot be that local government affords favours to friends and then selectively enforces municipal regulations on businesses that aren’t lucky enough to have the right connections.
The business in question belongs to a young entrepreneur who employs four other young people. It is young entrepreneurs like him who need the support of a government that encourages SMME development, not shuns small businesses and seeks to inhibit economic growth with unnecessary red tape.
Unlike the ANC, the DA realizes that while government can create temporary work opportunities on state projects, government can’t create jobs. Instead real, sustainable jobs can only be created by the private sector, and particularly by small and medium sized businesses.
In contrast to Sol Plaatje, a DA municipality would make starting and growing businesses easier. We would work with local small and micro enterprises, and not against them. The DA would also establish Local Economic Development (LED) one-stop-shops to provide information on investment opportunities to drive and promote job creating investment and not discourage it.
The DA encourages all citizens to vote for jobs on 3rd August, by putting their cross next to the DA, who knows that businesses are the only real engine of job creation.
Media Enquiries:
Andrew Louw
DA Northern Cape Provincial Leader
082 383 6914
Shelley De Witt
Researcher
082 847 1387
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