The Democratic Alliance claims they are an alternative to
the ANC as a governing party. The corrupt ANC lest we forget.
There’s no dispute the ANC is unable to govern and are
corrupt. Today with corrupter-in-chief Jacob Zuma no longer in power and barely
functioning, the party and country are no better off. Corruption flourishes under alleged reformer,
the weak and effectual president Cyril Ramphosa, including in his cabinet under
his nose. The National Prosecutions Authority’s disappointingly wishy washy head
Shamila Batohi has yet to prosecute one grand corruption case. The status
quo persists.
But is the DA as good as they, their supporters and
uncritical media say?
They are better managers than the ANC but that’s because the
ANC set the bar very, very low. In fact,
any party can govern better as proven
by coalitions where the ANC failed to get an outright majority, Cape Town,
Johannesburg and Port Elizabeth being notable examples. In these cases, the DA incorrectly claimed it,
rather than the coalition of which it was a member, showed its merits.
Governing is more than just financial administration,
though. In South Africa there’s
confusion about what it takes. It includes
obedience to laws, ethics, transparency, accountability, just administrative
action and service delivery.
Unfortunately, here all parties fail particularly DA and ANC as the
country’s only governing parties.
The DA and its office bearers have committed venal sins of
lying and misrepresentation that led to mortal ones of disregard for the law,
irregularities and corruption where it governs in the Western Cape and Cape
Town.
In part 1 of this series I describe how Western Cape
government and health department protected negligent, fraudulent and alleged murdering
doctors. In part 2, Cape Town’s
Municipal Planning Tribunal is shown to be a corrupt tool that benefits the
DA’s donor developer friends.
In this part 3 I describe where the DA lied, incompetent, corrupt,
involved in regulatory capture and failed the test of good governance. Almost all of these cases failed to grab the
media’s – the fallible, biased, self-styled arbiter of ethical standards – and
public’s attention.
Helen Zille and DA lie
about Cape Town Stadium
In 2006 then mayor of Cape Town Helen Zille lied about the
financial model for Green Point Stadium, as it was known then. South Africa was under pressure from FIFA
(itself corrupt) and world scrutiny to deliver facilities for the 2010 World
Cup. After the DA won the city from the
ANC in 2006’s local elections, Zille placed a moratorium on construction of the
R40 billion stadium due to concerns about its funding.
No World Cup or Olympic stadium anywhere in the world is
financially viable. Afterwards, most
were mothballed, fell into disuse and in some cases demolished. So Zille was
prudent and sensible.
However, immediately Zille lifted the moratorium saying “I’m
satisfied with the financial model” and that it allegedly would not strain Cape
Town’s finances in future.
It was a lie but of the type politicians make all the
time. It was excusable at the time,
though, because the city was under immense pressure from national government
and FIFA had threatened to withdraw all games from the city if construction at
Green Point (they dismissed alternative venues in Athlone and the far cheaper
renovated Newlands rugby stadium) did not go ahead.
But Zille’s capitulation and lie had significant cost implications
– billions of rand – for Cape Town’s ratepayers that we’re still
experiencing. Like all host cities,
construction companies colluded with bids that resulted in cities been overcharged.
Second, the running costs since completion
went into the hundreds of millions.
While the city recouped some of the money it was overcharged
via a class action lawsuit, they cannot recoup the conservatively R100 million
a year Cape Town Stadium is costing since its completion in 2009. In 2010 the management contract with Stade de
France/Sail Group to run the stadium collapsed when the consortium realised it
would never be viable. So the city had
no choice but take over its running, throwing good money after bad ever since
on a prestige project.
In 2013 an independent councillor, who was not an accountant,
discovered the official running cost of the stadium was understated by over R100
million. Mayoral finance committee
member Ian Neilson, who incidentally has no formal financial training, admitted
the “correct” figure was R436 million.
In 2016 I investigated the annual cost of the stadium’s
operations and maintenance. The city
refused to give me the information despite it being public information. A manager and chief financial officer Kevin
Jacoby separately claimed the information “simply does not exist”, which if
true were a violation of public finance laws.
Eventually they gave me a partial income and expenditure
statement that notably omitted employee costs (R22 million a year, published
elsewhere), municipal services and levies and the full cost of maintenance. Not counting the foolhardy and fruitless Cape
Town Cup that lost R29 million which was meant to drum up business for the
stadium, I estimated the true annual cost was around R100 million a year
subject to variable maintenance costs, which a University of Pretoria
construction academic, an expert in stadia, told me was a fair assessment.
Recently, though, the city finally succeeded in getting
Western Province Rugby to move to the stadium, I suspect with a bit of arm
twisting that may have included the city refusing permission for the owners –
WP Rugby – to renovate historical Newlands.
The city continues subsidising Cape Town Stadium’s running cost to tens
of millions a year, the full cost WP Rugby cannot afford because it’s particularly
expensive facility to run.
DA cadres’ millions of
fruitless and wasteful expenditure
So here – the stadium – Zille, Neilson, Jacoby and rank-and-file
DA cadres lied and in so doing cost the city hundreds of millions each year in
fruitless and wasteful expenditure. This
is corruption but an apparently acceptable form. They’re not the only party to do this, though. The ANC’s waste wherever they manage is
countless. But the DA claims they’re
different.
Throughout the city there are numerous examples of waste
like the stadium that are hidden in the city’s budget. Two happened in the ward I live. Parks and Recreation are spending almost R1
million in 2020 and 2021 on a facility the community never asked for or
need. The first phase completed October
2020 cost R280 000. The facility is seldom used. (They proposed additional facilities which if
it proceeds would bring the total cost to an estimated R5 million, facilities
that also will not be used and in time neglected like others around the city.)
The sub-council and councillor co-opted and colluded with a
previously unknown so-called residents group that was not even officially
constituted and had no standing to drive the project including presenting a
“petition” for the facility, an unheard of move.
Violating municipal law that proscribes political
interference, over a period the city facilitated this shadowy group to set
specifications and they requested permission from them to proceed with the project, which is unheard of. Note
the community were unaware of what was happening until the project commenced
with earthmovers on site. Not even the democratically
representative ward committee were aware of the decision-making as by law they must
be.
The mayco for community services Zahid Badroodien, mayor,
city manager and political and administrative heads were warned there were
irregularities and the project would be a waste. But they ignored appeals to stop and
reconsider and allocate the money in areas that do need it, like neighbouring
wards. Rather, they were combative and
dismissive.
The motivation for the city’s obstinacy here was, as the
contractor stated this week at the start of the second phase, “the
city has a budget it must spend”. Last
year Badroodien’s liaison officer told me that at the end of the financial year
there’s a rush to spend budgets. This
happens whether expenditure is needed, and therefore, valid, or not.
The second motivation is the DA need the support of co-opted
groups for 2021’s local elections so they throw money at them. It’s a move the DA has complained about of
the ANC but they see nothing wrong when they do it.
It’s no surprise there was an element of corruption here
when a member of the residents group was former DA mayco member and councillor
Suzette Little who was investigated for irregularities.
Another instance of waste this year where I live is the
city, to my and even their contractors disapproval, insisted on spending over
R100 000 in a seven-day period on a fruitless and wasteful landscaping project
along a main road. I and their
contractors warned them it was “insanity” (their contractor’s word) and
futile. When I interceded, the city –
mayco and senior Transport officers – strung me along pretending they were
listening.
It was not my guess it was pointless. The plants, endemic to sandy, water scarce
regions, are unsuitable for the location.
Where they were planted along the same stretch only a couple of months before,
they had not taken. Worse was that
perfectly healthy ground cover had been ripped up, and soil preparation was
poor, not conducive to growth.
The result was, as predicted, less than two months after
completion: an ugly, weed strewn patch where about 30% of the plantings have
taken, and there poorly too.
There was another case of poor workmanship by a city
landscaping BEE, black-owned contractor that vandalised trees with unnecessary
pruning. Also probably to spend budgets
rather than because it was needed. Parks
had to plant a dozen new trees, estimated cost R50 000 (three or four days work),
to partially rectify the six almost ruined ones. The contractor probably continues working for
the city.
In one ward alone R1 million was wasted on futile work within
twelve months. There are many areas in
the metro, neglected townships for example, that urgently need improvement and
spending.
There are 61 wards in Cape Town. Assume half have similar wasteful
spending. That means at least R30
million of futile expenditure is lost annually under the DA, hidden in the
city’s books that the auditor-general, who incidentally were informed of the
above, doesn’t examine, or if they do, rule them management’s prerogative.
The true figure is probably far higher, in the hundreds of
millions, not counting white elephants like the stadium. All this is under the DA who claims they’re
not corrupt and incorruptible.
DA cadres out of
their depth
John Steemhuisen and
Patricia de Lille.
The DA – Zille, parliamentary leader John Steenhuisen, the
most famous and highest paid matriculant in the country and once BFF of racist
columnist David Bullard) – say they’re against cadre deployment.
It’s expected political heads of department to be taken from
the ruling party. But good governance
demands competent, qualified people are chosen for political office and the administrative
level of government is ring-fenced from political interference.
In South Africa this is not the case, though. The DA too hypocritically engage in the
practice of cadre deployment – people who’re frequently out of their depth and
even incompetent. And like their masters,
when the going gets tough, or just for the hell of it because that’s what’s
done here, they too lie.
Zille infamously nominated Patricia de Lille as her
successor as mayor in Cape Town. But
after winning 2016’s local elections for the DA, they turned on her with
fabricated allegations of wrongdoing.
De Lille and mayco for development Brett Herron was the tip
of the spear for their “red-carpet approach to development” that saw
development decisions being brought under the executive over the objections of even
the city’s urban professionals. Since
then the DA city has aggressively and combatively promoted development at all
costs. (See part 2.)
The corrupt tool, the Municipal Planning Tribunal,
explicitly said residents – the majority of Cape Town’s 4 million people – who
object to wanton and irresponsible development must suck it because it’s
allegedly for the greater good. That’s
not true because development generally benefits the city and developers, a
small minority. That they’re probably DA
donors is no coincidence. This is the
DA’s version of state capture.
Zille’s appointment of Mamphela Ramphele to the DA
leadership a few years ago is another of her blunders. While Ramphele was a good sociologist once,
she’s no politician. The embarrassing
awfulness of her appointment makes the DA pretends it never happened.
John Steenhuisen is Zille’s man. But he’s ineffectual, giving the impression
he’s trying to fill shoes that’s too big for him. He may be workmanlike and well-intentioned
but he lacks gravitas. His pronouncements,
like the DA’s generally, emphasise his lack of profundity.
Steenhuisen’s soft pandemic denialism – that lockdowns
aren’t necessary, etc – is strange and embarrassing. But it is party policy. He and his colleagues don’t understand what
they’re talking about and show the DA has shifted to the right and adopted rightwing
views since Zille became party leader a decade ago.
One of the things he is remembered for is the Steenhuisen
Report that fingered De Lille in alleged irregularities. Everyone outside the party knew it was a
witchhunt but Steenhuisen, whose highest academic standard is a school leaving
certificate, purportedly investigated and wrote a forensic report, activities
that require some expertise.
Probably others did the investigating and writing and he
only put his signature to it at the behest of party leadership. If so, that makes him a pawn, a puppet and
not his own man but Zille’s and the de
facto racist white leadership who felt De Lille was getting too big for her
boots and had outlived her usefulness after bringing brown and black votes and a
two thirds majority for the party in 2016.
De Lille was an unpleasantly combative politician and mayor,
traits that worked for her and her small party in the National Assembly but was
not needed as mayor. Her “jou moer” Cape Flats attitude and
contemptuous DA demeanour to Cape Town’s citizens (not to her millionaire developer friends, though) did not endear. Despite that she was a hard working mayor and
loyal DA cadre.
When De Lille and Herron resigned from the city and party
after winning all the court cases she brought against DA for their unfair
attacks, she and her supporters in council complained that brown and black members
were useful as voting fodder only, and that the DA’s white management seldom
ventured into these areas. At the time their
racism allegation seemed far-fetched but was proven after 2019’s national
elections when Zille and DA were worried they lost white votes but unconcerned
about losing black and brown votes.
Steenhuisen’s ineffable report was withdrawn. The DA had no choice after De Lille bloodied
them time and again in court and the court of public opinion. She went on to form GOOD and got a seat in
Ramaphosa’s cabinet thereby showing the middle finger to Zille and DA which
performed slightly worse than expected in the 2019 election.
Xanthea Limberg, Ian
Neilson and Kevin Jacoby
Cape Town’s CFO Kevin Jacoby was parachuted into the job
despite having no city/metro experience.
His previous job was treasurer of Oudtshoorn. While the fundamentals of accounting are the
same everywhere, there is a vast difference between and in the complexity of a
large city of 4 million people, the second biggest in the country (half the
population of New York’s or London’s), and a town. He’s not even a chartered
accountant. This is like a spaza shop
owner running Massmart.
To be fair, though, Cape Town’s clean audits (a low bar)
indicate financially it is well run, but that’s because the city employs
numerous qualified accountants. It’s because
Jacoby lacks a professional accounting background that he said financial information
about Cape Town Stadium allegedly does not exist.
And probably it’s more politics than professional competence,
but he apparently does not know how to conduct a forensic audit. He dismissed allegations of wrongdoing in the
Parks and Recreation project described above after interviewing only the
project manager, who as expected told him what he wanted to hear.
Xanthea Limberg was an obscure 32 year-old (proportional
representative) councillor of South Bellville when she was made mayco for water
and sanitation. An ID cadre and De Lille
appointee, she had no previous executive city or high level professional
experience. Her previous jobs were ID’s
parliamentary researcher and De Lille speech writer, lowly non-technical
positions.
After her appointment in 2016, her modest mettle was tested
with the drought and water shortage in 2017 and 2018. De Lille and oddly Neilson and Zille, despite
provinces having no jurisdiction in water, were the public faces of the city’s
response. They went on the offensive,
gaslighting residents (while businesses did as they pleased) for allegedly not
conserving water and being responsible for the one-in-a-hundred-year crisis.
During this Limberg was almost invisible. When she did surface from the mud pool at DA
city hall, it was to give contradictory statements. It was no wonder that the city’s response was
poor and contributed to the near disaster of what De Lille termed Zero Day.
Cape Town was world news.
While the DA had apologists and champions, none more loudly than Zille,
De Lille and the rest of leadership and rent-a-mob, expert consensus was the
crisis was entirely foreseeable, the national Department of Water Affairs
having warned them years before.
The DA, which prides itself on superb management, failed to
factor population growth and that climate change meant more frequent periods of
dry spells and drought. In fact, rains
had been below average from 2015 but the city’s message never went beyond that
of saving water and summer restrictions on watering residential gardens, with golf
courses, businesses and hostelry unaffected.
Even during the crisis, the city excused the tourism industry which
consumes megalitres of water and never policed requirements for all properties
to have water saving fixtures. Only late
2017 with the crisis at its worst, after continuing to blame residents for the
entire city failing to meet water saving targets, did De Lille admit it was a
crisis which until then she and DA denied.
The other factor experts mentioned was the DA’s
overconfidence in their own abilities and avoidance or fear to spend money. Overconfidence is their hubris they know
better than everyone despite clearly lacking complete competence. Bureaucratic single-mindedness aside, this
continues with big and small events, e.g. Parks’ waste on facilities no one
needs, their refusal to admit they’re wrong and that they haven’t done their
homework.
Not spending budgets then recklessly spending before the
financial year-end is due to their unhealthy obsession with clean audits, which
they don’t even understand what it’s all about.
Their fixation about audits show their confusion and conflation about good
governance.
While Limberg was out of her depth and AWOL during the water
crisis, Neilson became the city’s unofficial crisis manager. He had the finance portfolio so why did De
Lille, and when the DA were increasingly criticised for its water crisis management,
party leader pastor Mmusi Maimane appoint him to water pro tem?
Maimane had no business getting involved in municipal
business. He had one role only:
DA’s leader in the National Assembly as leader of the opposition. But his is the hubris of Zille that has
infected the entire party. Among other
things, when she was premier she publicly boasted (in her Daily Maverick column From the Inside)
interfering in matters that didn’t concern her (see part 1), e.g. telling Eskom
where they can’t load shed.
Back in the day before he turned to easy-money politics,
Neilson was a professional water engineer with a master’s degree. (Why he got the finance portfolio rather than
water is something only the DA knows.)
Also, that job is the third senior post after mayor and speaker. So given his engineering background, it was a
logical choice.
But Neilson, who until then had issued statements about the
crisis, struggled even in his professional specialism of water. During a videoed News24 interview that was
later posted on the internet, he literally could not answer one question. As questions were put to him, he looked like
a deer immobile in the headlights. After a few questions he abruptly stopped
the “interview”. It’s on YouTube. It’s hilarious.
Combatively, Neilson said he was ambushed but News24
countered that they had arranged it with his office and he had known about
it. He later apologised. But 4 million
people were no wiser about the city’s preparedness as we headed to disaster.
The only explanation why Neilson could not respond to a
matter that he had professional knowledge about as an engineer, even a retired
one; had been on the city’s minds for 18 months; that he had previously spoken
and issued statements about and having been made the DA’s go-to water boy is
gross incompetence. And the arrogance
that they – the DA and incumbents in governance amply displayed by Leader Helen
Zille – know everything there is to know.
As experts said, they’re misguided, arrogant, overconfident in
their abilities.
Late 2017 De Lille acknowledged the water crisis task team
composing officials and academics that was supposed to guide the city’s
response had failed to deliver. She said
they were more concerned about furniture for their offices than doing their
job. Ironically, one of the DA’s
accusations against her was that she was solely to blame for the crisis. White male DA members like hopelessly stumped
Neilson (and virtually absent Limberg) were not accused. While the buck stopped with De Lille, she was
not the only one who ought to have been charged. DA incompetence runs deep.
Beth Engelbrecht, former
head of Western Cape Health Department
Medical doctor Beth Engelbrecht is an example of a DA cadre
who was both out of her depth and mendacious.
In part 1 I described how she failed to investigate serious charges
against Groote Schuur Hospital doctors.
Instead, she defended them – “I have full confidence in them” – without
having had sight of the accusations. In
doing so she violated national health laws, and Western Cape policy and
professional ethics.
But even for the DA and government conduct, which we know is
of a very low standard, in October 2019 she lied to the Western Cape
legislature and public about a matter that was on record including WCHD’s own
website – the department’s financial reports for the previous five years. While Engelbrecht is not an accountant, as
CEO she ought to have had a basic understanding of financial reporting that
even an ordinary householder has.
What Engelbrecht told the legislature and public was that WCHD’s
budget had declined every year for the previous four years. But the financial summary
on their website and detailed in their 2014 to 2019 annual reports show the
opposite. In real and relative terms its
budget had increased 8% annually, more than twice inflation, and 10% a year as
a percentage of the Western Cape’s total expenditure.
The second lie was dramatic increases in patient numbers
were placing “severe pressure” on resources bringing the department to a crisis. Health MEC Nomafrench Mbombo, the DA’s
cosmetic black appointee, said the same.
A DA hobby horse, when Zille was premier she also complained about the
influx from Eastern Cape that they said was putting strain on the Western
Cape’s social services without a commensurate increase national funding. Soto
voce the DA and their racist supporters claimed it was an ANC plot to
overrun the Western Cape with ANC-voting poor blacks to bring about an ANC
election victory.
Again, the opposite was true. The combined in- and outpatient increase was
3%, the same as increases in staff numbers.
These glaringly obvious matters that required no accounting
skill except how to read a schedule meant Engelbrecht and Mbombo were either grossly
incompetent in a key area of their job description or they deliberately lied,
an offense and actionable unethical conduct.
Another mystery is why their staff did not pick it up before their
statements, repeated at various times, were printed and presented to the public,
unless they too are incompetent. Or was
it a case of not telling the empress she has no clothes on.
There is no penalty for lying to the public but there is for
lying to the legislature. When I read
the mistake Engelbrecht repeatedly made, I politely informed her, Premier Alan
Winde and DA head of the health committee Wendy Philander. There was no response.
One would have thought they would express thanks for
bringing a serious mistake to their attention.
But to do so would mean having to acknowledge they, the DA, makes
mistakes which in their minds they never do.
And it must stick in their craw a critic like me notices it.
Related to WCHD’s finances, November 2019 Afriforum laid
criminal charges against Engelbecht. Was
she hauled over the coals? Unlikely when
the DA takes no action against staff accused of medical negligence, fraud and
homicide (see part 1). But with her
credibility in question, it’s hard to see how she could have remained in her
post for long. No reasons were given but
she was replaced as head of health from April 2020. Hopefully the incumbent Keith Cloete is
better.
Engelbrecht and Mbombo were Zille appointees too. Zille made one mistake after the next appointing
losers to top posts. Imagine if a
sporting coach continually selects players who don’t perform. They’d quickly be benched. This says something about her judgement and
management abilities.
But in her supporters’ and DA’s eyes, her reputation is
unaffected. They continue having full
confidence in her, a cadre thing. They
elected her as leader of the party, Zille resigning her fellowship at the
rightwing Institute of Race Relations.
Zille got numerous chances including after her egregious
tweets about colonialism during her trip to Singapore on official
business. While her opinion was not too
problematic except to the left, it was her insistence she did nothing wrong and
obliviousness to the outrage. She was
Zille and always was right.
The DA and party leader pastor Maimane treated her with kid
gloves. She eventually grudgingly
apologised.
So the DA’s unwritten rule is if one is Zille and white,
one’s sins are forgiven. But if one is black
and independent-minded – De Lille and Lindiwe Mazibuko for example – then the
gloves are off. The DA, which believes
they’re peerless where governance and ethics are concerned, is disaster prone
and racist as their critics on the left always said.
Geordin Hill-Lewis
Geordin Hill-Lewis is DA spokesman for finance and their
candidate for mayor of Cape Town in 2021’s local election. His entry into politics is that of the
classic inexperienced and unqualified cadre.
In 2009, as a new honours graduate in a cross-over economics
degree, Zille appointed him as her chief of staff. CoS is an executive
non-political position, the most senior in an administration. He was her right hand man. His only work experience, if it can be called
that, was a member of the DA’s UCT student branch and a volunteer during the
20o9 election campaign.
How this greenhorn in his early twenties without any work
experience leapfrogged over mature, experienced people to land an executive
post in government earning at least R1 million a year is either through
nepotism or a serious case of brown-nosing, basically hard-core cadre
deployment which the DA say they’re against in any form.
In 2014 Hill-Lewis was promoted to Parliament as the DA’s
trade spokesman. I know of a brown woman who over a decade ago after an honours
degree in politics, found a job with the DA.
Eventually she was appointed assistant to a Western Cape MEC with whom,
incidentally, she travelled overseas on official business (provinces have no
role in international relations so this was really a waste of taxpayer
money). In 2019 she was promoted to
Member of Parliament as a DA backbencher.
Her journey took over a decade to backbencher while
Hill-Lewis’, with a similar university degree and less experience, took five
years to spokesman on trade. Seven years
later he’s the DA’s mayoral candidate.
What’s wrong with this picture?
It’s possible Hill-Lewis a brilliant strategist and thinker
and that’s what brought him to Zille’s attention but I doubt it. The few statements of his I’ve read show a
pedestrian, workmanlike political mind, spouting the usual unoriginal DA
bromides with a thin grasp of his area, economics, which he has in common to
all South Africa’s politicians.
One of the statements to the National Assembly was the lie
other DA members including Zille, Mmusi Maimane and Emma Powell stated at
different times. It was the DA had
“created” over 400 000 to 600 000 (the number varied widely depending on
who spoke) “new jobs” since they took power in the Western Cape.
This claim, which I’ve repudiated in articles, cannot be
proved. The DA take bald figures in
Statistics South Africa’s Quarterly Labourforce Surveys compared to 2009’s
figures. However, StatsSA does not mention
job creation in any form – their purpose is to present the status quo at a
point in time. So any conclusion the DA
arrived at are their own, not based on the data, but what suits their political
narrative of a supposedly successful governing party. It’s called changing the facts to suit the
conclusion.
Further, the DA’s members confuse and conflate job terms –
interchanging “official” unemployment rates with “broad”, the higher, when it
suits their narrative although the official rate is used in all analyses. They also don’t understand that in South
Africa regions – cities and provinces – have no decision-making powers on
economic policy which is a national competence and so have little power over
investment decisions, the driver for growth and job creation.
Last, the DA forget that since 2009 there was a large
increase in public sector employment which cannot count as “job creation”.
These I put to Hill-Lewis in an email. I asked where he got his information the DA
allegedly created all these new jobs. He
replied backtracking that the DA Western Cape government can only “create the
conditions” for job creation, not jobs per se, which is not what he said in
Parliament.
His evidence for his and
DA’s claim was a Powerpoint presentation Zille as premier gave the previous
year or so. He attached the file. The presentation was about the Western Cape’s economic
position and included sunshine information of how the province was doing
compared to nationally in growth, employment, etc. It cited StatsSA as source for some
information, but there was no citation for its claim of new jobs “created” – the
400 000 to 600 000. In other words, it
was Zille’s and her government’s own incorrect interpretation of various sources and their conclusion.
I replied to Hill-Lewis with the above. He responded, insisting the source was
StatsSA despite Zille’s presentation not mentioning them and said I was
“wilfully misrepresenting” matters and sulkily terminated the conversation
after initially saying he was happy to discuss it.
This showed me that Hill-Lewis is immature; petulant; cannot debate
the facts with someone who has them; incapable or too lazy to research; like
politicians do, chooses to see what he wants to see including what’s not there
and gets upset when it’s pointed out and misrepresents and lies. Arguably worst of all, he lied to the legislature
(in common with other DA cadres).
I don’t know if other DA members stated the same or similar
lies in the legislature but Maimane, likely Zille and Emma Powell wrote
articles containing these and other myths about their party which they repeated despite being corrected.
Generally,
though, South Africa’s politicians like media and even some academics have a
poor grasp of socio-economic matters. The
late Belinda Bozzoli, the DA’s higher education spokeswoman, in two articles
wrote labour (skills) creates jobs (labour).
Labour cannot create itself. When
I commented what it takes to create jobs, she sarcastically responded, still not
understanding.
DA political appointees
out of their depth and unqualified
Hill-Lewis is out of his depth presently as finance spokesman. I’m not
sure why they chose him as their 2021 mayoral candidate, a young white man leading
a city that’s predominantly black and brown.
The DA says they’re the most racially representative of all
parties in South Africa, but at least half of their office bearers are white,
8% of the country's total population. It’s not a matter
of qualifications, though, because by now, in the Western Cape anyway, there
must be browns qualified for top political and other positions, not the
cosmetic affirmative action appointments the DA make. Alan Winde, while adequate, is not the most
qualified to run the Western Cape government. Arguably, Dr Ivan Meyer is.
In 2015 Winde, then economic development MEC, and Tim
Harris, acting CEO for Wesgro, insisted the lack of skills was allegedly
endangering the WC economy and skills must be imported. But they were silent when I asked for evidence
(another instance of the DA lying.) This
was merely DA politicking. There is no
skills shortage, which is a South African myth mainly created by big business.
Wesgro and WC government received 199 applications for the
CEO post. But DA cadre white Harris, who
was their finance spokesman in Parliament, got the job. Harris, though, is the exception to the DA
appointees being over their heads.
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