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ANC alliance against Western Cape Provincial Powers Bill

The Africa National Congress has accused the Democratic Alliance of wanting to preserve Apartheid, in relation to the Western Cape Provincial Powers Bill.

The DA said the bill aims to empower provincial and local governments to address issues where the national government has failed to deliver services to residents. Some of those functions include policing, rail, energy and trade.

The ANC in the Western Cape, alongside its alliances, comprising of South African Communist Party (SACP), Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), and the South African National Civic Organisation (SANCO), held a media briefing on Friday, 26 January 2024, regarding their stance on the bill.

PHOTO - Muhammad Khalid Sayed: ANC with its alliance partners


Leading the briefing, ANC Provincial Deputy Secretary Ayanda Bans, claims the Bill is, what she calls, a farce and the public hearings a ruse.

‘’The DA is forcing public hearings despite three legal opinions from advocates appointed by the DA in the Legislature, advising them in no uncertain terms that their proposed Powers Bill:

• Does not have the legislative competence or constitutional authority to develop, propose and enact this Bill. • Provides no constitutional premises upon which its legislative authority is predicated. The Bill is therefore illegitimate and invalid. • The Bill itself does not disclose the legal basis for its own existence, and • The subject-matter of the Powers Bill is not in the legislative competence of the Province.

Over and above the legal advice, the fundamental basis for rejecting the Powers Bill is the reality that at the heart of the Powers Bill is the building of an apartheid Zionist Western Cape by the DA-Capexit alliance. Such an envisaged apartheid Zionist Western Cape’s basic tenets will include key amongst other things; divide the national population and creation of enclaves of privilege and misery for the people of the Western Cape, resuscitation of the discriminatory apartheid system along racial lines, deepening of inequality and indignity of poverty.’’

Bans says the alliance parties rejects the bill, as the socio-economic issues in the province is already struggling.

‘’If the sprawling squatter camps, homelessness in the Cape flats, escalating crime, extortions, corruption, school underperformance, continued un-placement of learners in schools, overcrowding in schools and deteriorating public health facilities, unemployment and poverty are not evidence of the of the neo-liberal DA’s incompetence, the farce concocted by the DA Capexit alliance constitutive of the right wing  Cape Independence Advocacy Group (CIAG), ACDP, and Freedom Front Plus is the perilous future.’’

‘’Yet, with almost 14 years of uninterrupted governance in the Western Cape and an average of R2,5 trillion to work with over said period, yet the Gini coefficient in Western Cape remains at 0.62. Presently, the Western Cape is characterised by asset and income inequality and spatial segregation that perpetuates the tale of two cities. The 16 per cent White demographic enjoys the lion’s share of the Western Cape’s R654 billion Gross Domestic Product. And, after 14 years of electoral dominance and armed with an annual fiscal budget of R303,36 billion, managed respectively by the Western Cape government and the City of Cape Town in particular, there comes a claim that National government is unwilling to provide services to the people of the Western Cape. We are therefore, convinced as the ANC headed alliance that the colonial apartheid imagination is ever present in the political DNA of the of the DA,’’ she added.

Bans highlighted that millions are spent on sectors such as healthcare, education, and infrastructure, but little to no progress were made

‘’Further, the farce that this Powers Bill is about service delivery fools no one. This ruse is about capturing the GDP after the DA already control the Western Cape fiscus. If it was about service delivery we were not going to experience violent crimes that are geographically and racially concentrated whilst about R1 billion was mis-spent  rather than to combat crime; we were not going to have a housing waiting list exceeding 600, 000 and an irregular expenditure of an astronomical R171 million and under expenditure of unconditional grants exceeding R215 million for the 2022/2023 financial year; we were not going to have the current challenges of shortage of beds, personnel in public health centres and more than a decade delays on the rebuilding of GF Jooste hospital; and we were not going to witness a total of R1.6 billion that could have been used to build brick and mortar schools being wasted on temporary solutions like maintenance, with R21 222 million which was meant which was meant for school nutrition, maths, science and technology teaching, and to assist learners with profound intellectual disabilities being returned to National Treasury.’’

PHOTO - Mitchum George:  ANC Provincial Deputy Secretary Ayanda Bans 


COSATU Provincial Secretary, Malvern De Bruyn, described the bill as a silly publicity stunt.

‘’Elections are approaching. The bill is unconstitutional and I do not think it will pass any court. COSATU is saying NO to the bill.’’

Benson Ngqentsu, SACP Provincial Secretary, says the public hearing is a farce.

‘’We are not going to allow the DA-led government to do as they wish. In respect to the people, we ought to lead by example. The purpose is to reject the bill. We fought for this democracy.’’

Pat Murran, a member of the Western Cape ad-hoc committee, described the bill as unconstitutional

‘’The DA is failing in terms of the powers. They cannot even tackle issues that are currently on their plate. They do not care about other areas in the country. To them, it is always about the Western Cape.’’

ANC Western Cape leader, Cameron Dugmore, says he wrote to the COGTA minister, as well as NCOP, to probe the bill.

‘’I wrote to the minister of COGTA Nkadimeng and requested an investigation. There is no provision made by the DA where it will be allocated. She responded and indicated that she will consult with her department. We also wrote to the NCOP for a dispute to be declared and we want this to be declared unconstitutional. This underlines the seriousness of the bill. This bill will never see the light of day.’’

Benson Ngqentsu, SACP Provincial Secretary, says if the bill is not stopped, the Western Cape will be ungovernable

‘’As the alliance, if this Bill is not legally stopped, we will once again be called upon to tender the DA Capexit nexus in the Western Cape ungovernable to prevent the reincarnation of the modern-day apartheid system’’

Other political parties in the Western Cape also raised their voices about the bill - Economic Freedom Fighters’ (EFF) Western Cape chairperson Unathi Ntame said they denounce the bill and warn against its weaponisation against the spirit of unity upon which the South African Constitution was built.

The GOOD party’s Peter de Villiers described the bill as ‘’embarrasing’’, saying The Bill is a government-sponsored manifesto for the DA and what De Villers says, unashamedly unconstitutional.  

Public hearings into the DA's Provincial Powers Bill will be held across the province the entire week. It kicked off in Worcester on Monday.

Done By: Mitchum George

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