Statement by Tertuis Simmers – DA Western Cape Leader:
On 22 April 2009, the voters of the Western Cape elected the DA to be a majority government for the province – a moment where voters chose to get the Western Cape working.
For 17 years the DA has committed to doing the very best possible job of governing the Province, being recognised as the best-governed Province in South Africa time and time again, head and shoulders above the rest.
It took just one term of the DA in office in the Western Cape Government after 2009 to turn broken departments into ones achieving clean audits.
The 17 years of DA governance has made the Province a hub of job-creation in South Africa, delivering more net job-creation than the rest of South Africa combined.
Under the DA for the past 5 years, for every 10 people who got a job in South Africa, 9 of them were in the Western Cape.
Every day since the election of 2009, the DA Western Cape Government has renewed its commitment to the people of the Western Cape and across the country that the DA at large recommits to all of South Africa, pushing further to do more.
This is the essence of why the DA exists: To bring about a better quality of life for all people, to deliver services, to enforce the rule of law, to grow the economy – a South Africa that works, where people are more free, where everyone is treated fairly, where opportunity grows rather than shrinks, and where the diversity of all people matters.
We do this because we care deeply about the lives, and the future, of all people.
Today the Western Cape is building schools faster than any other province, so that children can all be accommodated, in safe education facilities.
Today the Western Cape is the only province with government-hospitals on the African continent doing robotic surgery on patients.
And today, the Western Cape and its local governments are building and delivering houses faster and in higher number than any other province – 12,000 homes in just 5 years, in Cape Town alone.
On this score, Cape Town has delivered 2.5 times more houses than Johannesburg, eThekwini and Ekurhuleni for these 5 years – more than double.
This coincides with DA-led inner-city housing opportunities like Founders Garden, Leeuloop and Prestwich coming online; bringing people closer to opportunity.
The DA is proud to lead the best-run Province in South Africa. There is always more to do, but the best position from which to do more, is from the head of the pack.
