Dying diggers of Namaqualand need saving
| by Andrew Louw MPL – DA Northern Cape Provincial Leader |
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| Date: 26 February 2020 |
| Release: Immediate |
| While there can be no denying that there was great expectation for change when Premier Zamani Saul was ushered in as the leader of the Northern Cape last year, the Democratic Alliance has been left disappointed by a lack of tangible results for his time in office so far.We are growing concerned that, like his predecessor, Premier Sylvia Lucas, he too is becoming known as ‘Premier Promises’ for a lack of being able to uphold the many commitments that he makes to the people.As a party of governance, the DA obviously understands that the state of government departments in this province was so poor, especially in institutions like Health, that they cannot possibly be turned around overnight. Nonetheless, by now we should have started to see some short term wins already – but we haven’t.Instead, we see the under-resourced and understaffed Health Department in an even worse state than last year, despite the Premier having set up a desk at the Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe Hospital. Appointments of critical staff are simply not being made or are so delayed that doctors and nurses already start jobs in other provinces, before submissions are even looked at by the Northern Cape administration.While we know the Premier was passionate about tackling unemployment, especially amongst the youth, we also still have the highest rate of young people, aged 15 years to 24, who are not receiving formal education, who are not employed and who are not otherwise economically active. Unlike the downward unemployment trend for the province, youth unemployment actually increased and now stands at a staggering 37%, according to the latest quarterly labour force survey.The DA is very worried about this.We certainly hope that, on Thursday, we will hear some of Premier Saul’s achievements to date, in respect of creating opportunities for the youth. We also want to know what he is busy doing to better address the youth unemployment crisis.We further hope that he not only tells us how he is rooting out corruption, but also backs this up with numbers of criminal cases opened, that show the extent of the consequence management in response to irregular expenditure and corruption.In addition, we hope to hear how the Premier plans to further allocate disaster funds to combat the harsh effects of the drought on the livelihoods of farmers, farm workers and other members of rural communities.These are just some of the things that we hope that he focusses on and we will be listening carefully to distinguish between empty promises and concrete, implementable plans and actions. |
| Media Enquiries |
| Andrew Louw MPLDA Northern Cape Provincial Leader082 383 6914 Shelley De WittResearcher082 847 1387 |
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