Passionate: Alan Winde, the premier of the Western Cape, says that his focus is on the economy and jobs and ensuring the province has a
‘healthy, educated population’. Photo: Rodger Bosch/AFP
‘Perhaps this is the ANC’s last dying kick. I hope so.”
Sitting in his spacious office in central Cape Town, Western Cape premier Alan Winde is voicing his frustration over the controversial National Health Insurance bill (NHI) being passed in the National Council of Provinces the day before we meet.
“I feel angry,” he says. “In our democracy, I can’t understand this. The ANC knows the NHI issue will just get tied up in court, and have a lot of opposition, so what’s the point?
“When you get told over and over again that this is not going to work; when your own data tells you it’s not going to work … why do they carry on with it?”
It’s 8am. Winde is looking back on his term as premier and confidently gearing for next year’s elections as the Democratic Alliance’s (DA) premier candidate in the province.
“Is this just an election foefie [gimmick]? Frankly, I don’t think voters are going to rush to the ANC just because they passed the NHI bill.
“They’re sick and tired of failure and everything is failing. If passing the bill is a last-ditch political effort, then that’s a failure in itself.
“The biggest problem the ANC have is that they know things don’t work or will go wrong but they keep on doing it. Like BEE [black economic empowerment]. It’s just made a few people wealthy, it hasn’t fixed the problem in SA, hasn’t changed people’s lives, but they just keep on doing the same thing.”
Winde’s office is abuzz. The next item on today’s diary is his adjustments budget vote speech in the legislature. His spokesperson Regan Thaw and special adviser Kylie Hatton are discussing the speech and the day ahead while his social media person Zeke Wareley is also already in action.
Days around here start early. “Leave? What’s that?” jokes Thaw.
Two bicycles stand in Winde’s office. A keen cyclist, he takes his health and fitness seriously and tries to fit in exercise every day.
“Stress and diabetes don’t go well together, so you have to work at it. I’m always trying innovative ways to ensure that my sugar levels are right — from plant-based diets to intermittent fasting.”
The most pressing issue on Winde’s mind is the intergovernmental dispute the Western Cape government has lodged with the treasury over the mid-term adjustment budget — and the R1.1 billion that’s been cut from the province’s budget.
In a few days, Winde will lead a provincial delegation to a meeting with the treasury to fight its case.
“When you declare an intergovernmental dispute, you can’t just go straight to court, you have to show you really tried to fix this. You have to show, these are all the letters we wrote, these are the engagements we had at treasury level and at presidential level.
“We are serious about finding a solution. It’s our citizens’ welfare at stake. We’ve been raising this issue since April but have been ignored. When it hits the fan, then we have to pick up the pieces.”
The dispute relates to the centrally negotiated and agreed-to public sector wage bill, which was implemented after the Western Cape parliament approved the annual budget, leading to in-year budget cuts. Winde argues that the province can’t afford this; diverting funds from crucial departments would impair service delivery.
“When that failure happens at a national level, it’s the citizens who suffer because they don’t get the service. The treasury expects us to cut with an approved budget.
“A budget is a contract. You can’t change it mid-term because that contract has subcontracts — the teachers, the nurses, the hospital builders, the classroom builders and the people contracted to build roads.
“Now, suddenly, we’re expected to say, ‘Sorry, we can’t employ you any more as a teacher or a nurse.’ This is a very serious situation.”
Winde refers, several times, to the “tremendous pressure” the Western Cape is under, with about 150 000 people moving to the province a year.
“These people are looking for services — health and education services, where the biggest money goes; and then social services. These are the most vulnerable in our society. The wealthy look after themselves when it comes to security, safety, education and all those things.
“You can’t just cut the contracts of teachers and nurses in the middle of the year, so what happens is you have to halve the school builds.
“We’ve already had to say, ‘Slow down on the school builds and on the building of roads.’ But our brand in the Western Cape is that we build schools faster than anybody else and we have the best roads in the country. Now, by implication, they are forcing us not to maintain the roads — so we’re fighting.”
Winde says the issue keeps him awake at night: “According to the latest census, last year we were 7.4 million people in the Western Cape. By 2027, we will be at eight million citizens. As more and more citizens leave failed provinces to come here, it puts more pressure on our province.
“At the same time, because of the failed national system, national policies and the ANC, we have a shrinking budget because our taxes are shrinking. That’s the core conundrum we face — less money, more people wanting more services. Innovation, efficiency and good governance do help, but only to a point, so we have to fight for every cent.”
Another matter close to his heart is the Western Cape provincial powers bill, aimed at devolving powers over, among other things, transport, policing, trade and energy to capable provincial and local governments.
Experts have voiced reservations about the DA’s plans for this bill but Winde is buoyant.
“The next stage is public participation, during which we will tweak the bill; hopefully we’ll get some really good inputs from citizens.
“This bill is a response to ANC government failure. We’re running a safety plan in the Western Cape because of the government’s failure to keep SA safe; we’re having to do interventions in the ports because of national government’s failure.
“Even though it’s not our constitutional mandate, we’re having to step in at local government and provincial level. Surely we need to create the legislative framework to do so?”
The calls by a range of parties for a referendum on independence for the Western Cape are growing. Would Winde support this?
He says although he supports the idea of being able to call a referendum, he is against secession.
“Ask the UK what they feel about secession. When you’re in the UK, everyone says it was the biggest mistake they ever made. Go to Europe and they say, ‘We don’t want them back.’
“Even if I was in power to call for a referendum, it would never work. If we had a fixed South Africa would they be asking for secession? No. So let’s fix SA.”
Regarding this year’s elections, Winde is quietly confident.
“If voters vote based on our track record, we should be fine. For instance, we are, by far, the lowest cost of employment-to-service-delivery ratio in the country; that gives us the capability to do what we need to do, despite massive pressure.
“If you look at the results of the census, we are already over 7.5 million citizens — easily the third-most populous province in South Africa — yet we get the fifth-most money. That is a total mismatch of funding to population, so we are having these fights to get that corrected.
“Despite that, in terms of our service delivery indicators, we are way up there. I am super-proud of our achievements: the rapid school-build programmes and our catch-up weekends for thousands of learners and what we’ve done in safety has been phenomenal.”
Last elections, he was described by Mmusi Maimane as the “jobs premier”. This still applies.
“Everything I do is actually about the economy and jobs. The Western Cape’s safety plan … was about the economy and jobs.
“You can’t expect economic growth if citizens have to be hiding from gangsters and if children are doing their homework under the table, because they’re scared of stray bullets. That’s not an environment to grow an economy.”
His slogan is: “Nothing stops a bullet like a job, nothing gives you dignity like a job and nothing puts food on the table like a job.”
Thinking back, Winde regrets Covid-19 took out “a whole chunk” of his term and affected his goals. Last year’s major floods, during which 154 roads were closed, were a test.
He is in awe of the “days and weeks spent repairing wash-aways and opening roads again. These are civil servants, who ordinarily have a bad brand in our country, but these guys have been amazing.”
Should he win another term, he says: “We’ll continue focusing on jobs, safety and the campaign for the devolution of policing powers to the province and, thirdly, the creation of dignity and well-being for all citizens — and that’s about ensuring we have a healthy, educated population.”
Winde elaborates on his leadership philosophy: “Tomorrow must be better than today, based on decisions you make today.”
Passionate about what he does, politics takes its toll on family life.
“It’s tough. My [two] children have only known politics. It’s hard as they know they have to be part of the brand. But I have their full support and that of my wife, Tracy.”