The Democratic Alliance is committed to reconciliation and redress This means rectifying the wrongs of the past and having an inclusive approach to the culture and heritage of all people.
The Eastern Cape Geographical Names Committee will soon be embarking on public hearings across the province. It is very important that we all participate in these hearings to ensure that this is a widely consultative process.
It comes as no surprise why parents in the Eastern Cape are choosing to move their children, albeit at great costs and financial sacrifices, to the Western Cape to complete their education.
The Eastern Cape education is on the verge of total collapse with the post provisioning of 2012 not fully implemented and educators on a go slow, resulting in a multitude of schools without their full complement of teachers.
There are three reasons why the Democratic Alliance is opposed to this year’s Adjustments Appropriation Bill.
• The province lost R400 million that could have been rolled over that wasn’t rolled over due to incapacity to spend.
• The shifts from Capital and goods and services to cover over expenditure on personnel (costs COE).
• The R27.5 million additional transfers to political parties.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) welcomes the announcement by President Zuma that a railway link joining East London and Durban is set to be built. (Ambitious plan to link coastal cities, Daily Dispatch, November 21.) This is an initiative that I have been calling for in the Provincial Parliament for the last two years.
A railway link of this nature will pave the way for the upliftment of communities in Butterworth, Dutywa and Mthatha. So far the communities mentioned have only benefited slightly from the Agri-tourism industry. Having a functional railway will allow the community nodes to transform to light industry nodes — such as East London — where medium to large business can invest and make significant dents in the unemployment rate of the province’s most rural areas.
‘The refusal of the SAPS to make crime statistics available on a more regular basis flies in the face of transparency and an open society’
THE hype around the annual release of the crime statistics earlier this month has died down. The SAPS can once more retreat behind a veil of secrecy and refuse to give out figures till next year, unless, of course, it suits their particular spin at the time.
The moratorium on the release of crime statistics was introduced in 2000 because of the unreliable reporting and recording methods of statistics by the police. But the current rationale for the moratorium is invalid.
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