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DA SELECTS KEVIN MILEHAM TO FILL NATIONAL ASSEMBLY VACANCY
May 10th, 2013
Kevin Mileham
Kevin Mileham, the DA’s Chief Whip in the Buffalo City Metropolitan municipality has been selected to fill the vacancy in the National Assembly due to Athol Trollip moving to the Provincial Legislature.
Mileham is 42 years old, married with two children, and is a product of the DA’s National Young Leaders Programme. He is someone who has shown the drive, commitment and energy to promote the vision of the DA over a long period of time.
This was an extremely intensive and competitive process whereby respective candidates first had to be interviewed by an electoral college and then ranked by a selection panel which was a diverse body of long standing members of the party.
I am happy that the process was democratically conducted and that all factors were taken into account. I was impressed by the calibre of people who had put themselves forward for this vacancy. This will provide us with a rich pool of talent to choose from in the run up to 2014 where the DA is expected to dramatically increase its representation.
Due to the fact that Athol Trollip filled the Legislature vacancy after the passing of Pine Pienaar, there was a vacancy in the National Assembly and this process has identified a candidate to fill the vacancy.
The process has also been used to amend the DA Eastern Cape’s National and Provincial IEC lists which the party is entitiled to do only once a year. The IEC list for the National Assembly to fill any vacancies that occur are in the following order: Kevin Mileham, Ray Hartle, Andrew Whitfield, Nico du Plessis and Brian Jackson.
The Provincial Legislature IEC list to fill any vacancy was ranked in the following order: Rene Oosthuizen, Ross Purdon, Marshall von Buchenroder, Richard Pickering and Lumka Memani.
STEVENSON PROUD OF ROLE IN FIGHTING APARTHEID: THE HERALD
May 3rd, 2013
THE article, “Divides evident at May Day rallies” (May 2), in which ANC national executive committee member Lynne Brown states that voting for the DA will bring back apartheid, shows the desperation in the ANC towards the growing DA electoral threat.
It is a ridiculous suggestion to think that the party of Lindiwe Mazibuko, Joe Seremane, Patricia de Lille, Mmusi Maimane and millions of other black South Africans who support the DA would be working to bring back apartheid.
As a leader in the DA, I am very proud of the role we played in fighting apartheid.
As Port Elizabeth’s youngest councillor in the late 1980s, I fought hard to rid the city of apartheid and usher in a new democracy.
I worked very closely with people such as Molly Blackburn, who was a Progressive Federal Party public representative at the time.
There are numerous public buildings and a committee room in the provincial legislature named after her.
At Nelson Mandela’s first welcome home rally held in Motherwell in 1990, where I was present after I earlier had enjoyed a private meeting with him, he devoted the first part of his speech to a tribute to what Blackburn did to fight apartheid and expose injustice.
She was a great and wonderful woman, who fearlessly spoke out when others were too afraid.
She and people like Helen Suzman, who I also knew very well, were staunch campaigners for a free and democratic South Africa.
I still treasure Helen’s words to me, inscribed in her book in 1994, where she thanked me for being part of it all.
There is now a desperate attempt to airbrush out the role that members of the DA’s predecessor parties played in fighting the brutality of apartheid.
We can never forget apartheid and its ongoing consequences, nor must we conveniently forget the role that non-ANC members played in fighting it.
Scare tactics are now being utilised to shore up the ANC’s shrinking support base.
The politics of fear can never triumph over the politics of service delivery.
The principles of the DA going all the way back to the 1960s have stood the test of time.
They are the basis of winning nations who are free, prosperous and just.
The struggle for a free and just South Africa continues.
Bobby Stevenson, MPL
Leader in the Legislature, Bhisho
MOVE TO CLOSE EAST CAPE SCHOOLS CRITICISED: DAILY DISPATCH
May 15th, 2013THE move to close hundreds of schools in the Eastern Cape has been criticised by education interest groups.
Opposition parties and South African Democratic Teacher’s Union (Sadtu) called for proper research to be conducted on what caused the numbers of pupils to decrease.
JOBS THREATENED BY MUNICIPAL INEFFICIENCY TO SUPPLY WATER TO SUNDAYS RIVER VALLEY
May 14th, 2013There is a grave water crisis in the Sundays River Valley caused by municipal inefficiency.
Some 20 000 people were left without water in Addo, Valencia and Nanathansanqa since last Friday (subs: 10 May 2013) due to problems with removing mud at Caesars dam.
310 EC SCHOOLS CLOSE BECAUSE MANY ARE RUN INTO THE GROUND
May 13th, 2013Today the DA visited Ilungelo Public School in Kwazakhele, Port Elizabeth, one of the 310 schools gazetted for closure this year by the Eastern Cape government.
Less than a tenth of this number of schools were closed in the Western Cape, but for very different reasons.
MUNICIPAL MANAGERS IGNORE CALL TO GET QUALIFICATIONS
May 9th, 2013Weak leadership in the Department of Local Government has resulted in municipal managers simply ignoring a 2007 Treasury regulation that they obtain minimum qualifications within a five-year period, by 1 January 2013.
The inability by municipal managers to obtain skills and qualifications have a direct impact on the quality (or lack) of municipal services received by the citizens of this province.