The outcome of the ANCs long-awaited KwaZulu-Natal conference was a win for the Thuma Mina crowd. (Delwyn Verasamy/M&G)
PRETORIA, June 2 (ANA) – Democratic Alliance (DA) leader Mmusi Maimane on Thursday claimed corruption in municipalities was a key factor contributing to the country’s unemployment rate.
Maimane, accompanied by the DA Tshwane Mayoral Candidate Solly Msimanga, was unveiling the party’s municipal elections and jobs campaign posters in Pretoria.
The opposition party’s jobs campaign was in line with their 2016 local government elections manifesto which promises to jump-start the country’s economy and provide jobs that South Africa needs to move forward.
The DA leader hit out at the ruling party and the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), saying the latter was as corrupt as the ANC, and their policies have nothing to offer to the people of South Africa except a downfall.
“Where there is corruption there can be no jobs, that is why the ANC government cannot create jobs. We are in the Youth Month now, we honour the 1976 generation but we can not say to this generation of Jacob Zuma’s government that there is something to celebrate for Youth Month, there is nothing when our young people are on the streets not working and are victims of “Nyaope” (illegal township drug concoction) and the number one reason for these is Zuma and the ANC,” said Maimane.
“That is why these people are dinosaurs, they cannot focus on the future of this country; the youth, but what is worse is that they gave birth to another child whose policies can barely be summarised in three words – everything for free. How do you trust people whose policies have failed in Zimbabwe? Don’t allow them to come here, it is like father like son, those people are corrupt and you can’t as a corrupt father produce a non-corrupt son.
They come from the same place, their policies are similar but they (EFF) are telling people that they must invest in them, we have seen under the ANC that we nearly got downgraded economically and it will be worse under the EFF because their policies are designed to chase away investors.”
Msimanga emphasised the DA’s local government manifesto for change which commits to turning Tshwane into the economic growth engine and job creation hub through its working with local businesses to identify and reduce challenges initiative.
“There is a number of interventions that we are going to take, if you look at Tshwane, there are a number of industrial sites that are owned by Tshwane and government, we are then going to revamp these industrial sites and then declare them as special tax zones that will attract investment and in return create the number of much needed jobs in the city.
“In doing this, we are not going to compete with the small businesses like the current government is doing; instead of competing with these small businesses we are going to invest capital in the business models that they have already started. We are going to identify sites which are not being used so that these small business owners can occupy to prosper their business ventures and contribute to the economy and job creation,” said Msimanga.
According to Msimanga, the solution to stopping corruption in the employment system is to employ people according to their qualifications and expertise while open tender system is the only way to end corruption in the country tendering system; which DA will implement once in power at the local government level and they want to bring capital to the Capital City, Tshwane.
– African News Agency (ANA)
Disclaimer: This story is pulled directly from the African News Agency wire, and has not been edited by Mail & Guardian staff. The M&G does not accept responsibility for errors in any statement, quote or extract that may be contained therein.