Executive Summary of the Premier’s Opening Address 2024

Today, 31 July 2024, Premier Alan Winde delivered his opening address to mark the first sitting of the 7th Western Cape Provincial Parliament.

Below is a summary of the Premier’s address:

Protecting and upholding our democracy

This year we joined 2 billion other people in over 50 countries who went to the ballot box to make their mark in defending and deepening democracy.

In too many places, democracy is in danger and under attack from extremism, populism, and nationalism. Many of us feared that here in South Africa those pernicious voices would win.

However, rationality and tolerance prevailed. We eschewed violence and dangerous politicking, in the interests of the majority of our residents.

While we have emerged from the 2024 general elections with optimism and hope, that a different trajectory is possible for this country, I am deeply concerned by the number of South Africans who did not vote.

How we as public representatives behave is just one way we can all show our residents that politics matters. We have the opportunity as public representatives to hold the space for difficult conversations, not further inflame them or create anxiety for our residents.

Thank you for the trust you have placed in us

The residents of our extraordinary province have shown faith in us by giving us their vote and I do not take this trust for granted. I am completely committed to working even harder for our residents every single day for the next five years.

Thank you for the honour that you have given me to serve as your Premier, I am deeply humbled.

There are formidable challenges ahead of us and we must confront them together if we are to lift the most vulnerable in society out of poverty, jumpstart the economy, and build South Africa and this province now and for our future.

Government must work FOR YOU

The Western Cape Government is committed to doing everything we can to help the GNU succeed for the residents of our province. We must build on the successes that this government achieved over the past 5 years. We will work closely with other spheres of government. We will support them when it is in the interests of our residents and fight for our residents when we do not believe that they are doing so.

We are committed to cooperative governance, but we will also hold national government to account.

A critical focus of this government over the next five years will be financial sustainability. We cannot build more hospitals and roads, employ more teachers and doctors and serve our communities if we do not get the funding our residents deserve.

Last year, we were placed in an unacceptable position amid the 2023 Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) due to the centrally agreed public sector wage bill.

Our residents were forced to endure unprecedented in-year cuts, compromising budgets.

We had little choice but to declare an intergovernmental dispute (IGD) with national government.

We have proven that by taking this step, without having to turn to the courts, we can raise challenging issues with National Government constructively.

The WCG endeavoured to see the IGD to its conclusion and recognised that this was a well-facilitated process that was rooted in the spirit of cooperative governance. The IGD sought to lay out clear principles for how future wage deals are to be agreed.

We pioneered this process, not just in the interests of the residents of this province, but for all provinces.

We have committed to work with national treasury and Minister Gondongwana, but we will not hesitate to act if we feel that the spirit of cooperation, we achieved in resolving this dispute, is broken or compromised. 

And while we pioneered the IGD process, I have given our newly appointed provincial Minister of Finance very clear instructions to work with National Treasury to ensure that we get our fair share of national funding.

The Western Cape has the fastest-growing population in South Africa.

Nationally we have the third highest population, yet we only get the fifth largest budgetary allocation.

This is not right, and we are going to fight for what our residents justly deserve.

But as a provincial government we also must explore alternative funding opportunities, and over the next five years I will be holding this government to account to make sure that we diversify our revenue streams wherever we can.

With the excellent track record of good governance that we have worked so hard to achieve, there are so many opportunities out there for us to pursue borrowing for the critical mega-investments we want to do. When I leave this office at the end of my term, I want us to have secured the deals that our track record of delivery enables us to do, in order to make those future investments possible and secure our financial sustainability.

Building on our successes by becoming a more future-fit province

Building for the future is not just about fiscal sustainability, it is also about developing the right policies and ensuring that they are implemented now. We must work better now, for the future.

It is anticipated that the population of the Western Cape will reach 10 million people by 2040.

But this rapid population growth comes with significant challenges. It places increased pressure on us all, especially our budgets.

Initiatives such as the Rapid School Build programme are one such intervention that is aimed at keeping up with the increasing numbers of learners seeking a quality education in the Western Cape and redressing the inequities of our past.

To accommodate the annual increase in learners, over the past 5 years, this programme has seen over 2 000 new classrooms built provincewide, including 48 new classrooms for learners with special needs.

An ever-increasing population and climate change are also placing our natural resources, our infrastructure and our agricultural sector under more pressure.

Managing precious resources such as water is vitally important, and it is why I have added water security to my own list of priorities.

Our dams may be propvol right now, but we cannot be assured of our water security next year. We are all too familiar with the phrase “Day Zero” and we must plan sufficiently and accordingly to ensure our province is water-secure and resilient. From that “close shave” with disaster we learned important lessons. This is why we are implementing the 15-year Western Cape Integrated Drought and Water Resilience Plan to better manage the supply and demand for this precious resource.

Responding efficiently & effectively to disasters

Our province is feeling the fury of the climate change crisis. This crisis is unfolding before our eyes.

For virtually every month this year so far, there has been a major disaster: from vicious fires to a mass power outage in the Karoo to heavy rains and floods.

In May, a man-made disaster left more than 30 people dead and dozens more injured. I vividly remember arriving at the site where an entire building in George collapsed. The scale of that disaster was heartbreaking.

But in a matter of minutes and hours, the site of the tragedy was swarming with disaster management officials of all kinds, who seamlessly worked together to save lives.

It was through this incredible cooperation that Gabriel Guambe, was pulled from the debris more than 100 hours after the collapse. It was through the unwavering dedication and professionalism of our disaster officials that Gabriel and so many others were saved.

And while we celebrate the many lives saved, my thoughts remain with the families of those who perished.

We will do everything in our power to ensure that those responsible for this unspeakable tragedy face the consequences of their negligence.

In the face of every disaster, our steady investment in our disaster management systems is paying off. 

We deeply appreciate the speedy classification and declaration of a provincial disaster in the wake of the destruction wreaked by the severe weather that hit the province earlier this month. But we are still owed the R1,3 billion in disaster funding for a series of floods that occurred in the province in 2023 from national government, and I will hold them to account for the funding that we need to rebuild. 

But we need to start working very differently as a government if we are going to withstand an increasingly erratic and unstable natural environment.

In the immediate term I have asked the ministers and departments of Infrastructure, Agriculture, Local Government and Environmental Affairs and Development Planning to urgently identify the infrastructure, land and water sources that could be vulnerable to flooding and fires in this financial year. I also support our Minister of Infrastructure in his engagements with the National Minister of Human Settlements to review the centralisation of the emergency housing funding model – it is taking too long to get emergency housing relief to vulnerable residents.

I will also be working closely with the Premiers of the other coastal provinces to see how we can work together to develop better approaches to the impact of climate change on our residents.

Embracing Innovation and Technology

We hold innovation very close to our heart in this government. Innovation allows us to approach issues, resolve problems, and improve how we work in unique and different ways.

The health sector is leading the way in exploring these new technologies. One such way is our use of robotic surgeries. In the past 5 years, this government has delivered two surgical robots that have performed over 500 procedures at Tygerberg and Groote Schuur Hospitals.

In our efforts to fight and prevent crime, technology is also playing a far more prominent role. In February, several of our district municipalities received donations of drones to give law enforcement agencies an edge and “eyes in the sky” to assist officers.

And just last week we launched the Social Work Integrated Management System (SWIMS) Application. The app aims to reduce the administrative burden on our social workers so that they can focus more of their energy on supporting vulnerable residents through therapeutic interventions.

Our embrace of innovation is being noticed and recognised. Last month, we scooped the esteemed Public Service Innovation Award at the United Nations Public Service Forum, which took place in South Korea, beating 400 entries from over 70 countries.

Recognising YOU, our residents

While we will continue to invest heavily in innovation and technology, we know that it is the connection, the conversation, holding your hand and showing you the care that must be at the core of everything we do.

If I reflect on the countless First Thursdays we have hosted and the many chats I have had with residents - sometimes I cannot unfortunately solve their problem; but we can give them the respect of listening to what they have to say and the chance to feel heard – just in the listening and hearing, we can show them that their voice matters.

Technology cannot and will not replace our commitment to making sure that in every space where we interact with our citizens, we show them that we see them, and we recognise their individual experiences. I have asked the Director-General to work with my office and the various departments across government to look at how we can firstly, further improve how our staff interact with our residents and secondly ensure that the places where we engage with them are clean, maintained and cared for.

The finer details must matter to us as a government.  We pride ourselves on offering quality public services, and so we must also take pride in how our facilities look and function. And we take pride in our staff. With our staff, we are governing FOR YOU, our residents.

Our commitment to our priorities remains unwavering

While we mark the start of the 7th administration, we will continue to focus on our priorities of:

• Building a growing, inclusive infrastructure-led economy that creates jobs;
• Building our energy and water security;
• Creating safer communities and devolving law enforcement resources and decisions; and 
• Further improving the province’s education and healthcare systems.

Jobs are the bedrock of building a prosperous province

I am obsessed with jobs and enabling more jobs, because with a job so much is unlocked for our residents.

We have already done so much as a government to make it easier for the private sector to create much-needed jobs. This province has the highest number of households that derive their income from a salary at 74,6%.

And we are determined to make it as easy as possible for the private sector to do business and create more jobs in our province. We are doing it through initiatives like our Red Tape Reduction Unit which makes it easier for businesses to get off the ground and grow. In the last five years this unit’s work resulted in a R2.4 billion saving for the economy.

Small and medium-sized businesses are the engines of our economic growth, working at the coalface of the economy.

Our SMME Booster fund has assisted hundreds of SMMEs, sustaining thousands of jobs and counting and we are going to put even more funding support into SMME business development over this term.

The Growth For Jobs (G4J) strategy – our overarching blueprint for breakout economic growth - is already one year old, and we are seeing encouraging outcomes from this bold plan to fuel economic growth.

It is through continued work like this that we will bring our unemployment rate below 20%. And while the Western Cape is the province with the lowest unemployment rate, it remains stubbornly high and for too many of our residents the statistics do not match up with their daily experience.

We need to make sure that the foundations for a thriving jobs environment are in place. That is why we will work tirelessly with the GNU to ensure that Operation Vulindlela’s plans are implemented. Here in the Western Cape, we want to see it make an impact on improving the viability of our port, freight, and logistics networks because we need to get this economy moving.

I urge the GNU to prioritise seeking private investment opportunities for the Port of Cape Town, because agriculture is a critical economic enabler of the province, with well over 50% of South Africa’s agricultural exports coming from the Western Cape.

The Western Cape is open for business: attracting more investment

If we are to attract more investment from both within our province and from abroad, we need to show investors that their faith in us, along with their resources, is safe and viable.

Earlier this year the RMB/BER Business Confidence Index (BCI) showed that confidence in our province is well above other provinces.

The BCI reflected a 3-point increase in confidence levels in the Western Cape from 2023Q4 to 2024Q1, improving from 37 points to 40, out of a possible 100. This was on the back of consecutive increases in business confidence in the province and the longest sustained increase in Western Cape business confidence since quarter two of 2018.

But we must do so much more because the challenges are still so severe.

Infrastructure Development

I have once again made infrastructure-led economic growth and job creation a core priority of my term. We set up the Department of Infrastructure with the sole purpose of building a future-proof province with its foundations in innovation, empowerment, and integration.

There are people across this government who are looking at how we can jumpstart our economy through infrastructure investment. For example, work is currently under way to drive a plan that could see this government investing R32.12 billion in fixed assets, catalytic growth projects, and agricultural infrastructure to stimulate an estimated R73 billion in capital formation and investment directly and indirectly in our economy over the next three years. This alone could generate 103 000 jobs, 61% of which will be for semi and unskilled employment.

The Western Cape is leading in the delivery of affordable housing with the First Home Finance programme. We are building homes as fast as we can. Since 2019 we have provided over 43 000 housing opportunities.

Between 2019 and 2023, 17 705 title deeds were registered for new developments.

In April 2024, Minister of Infrastructure, Tertuis Simmers, and I officially opened the N7 Refinery Interchange. This R250 million project was the product of years of meticulously planned hard work aimed at connecting communities.

This interchange is far more than just tar, steel, and cement. It should also be seen as an economic enabler linking citizens to economic opportunities. And just this month, we gave an important update on the R640 million Malmesbury Bypass upgrades in the Swartland region. These upgrades are significant components of the Strategic Integrated Project 5, under the National Infrastructure Plan 2050. Construction started in May 2023 and the project is expected to be completed by November 2025.

Giving our residents the skills, they need to prosper

But our residents, particularly our youth, need skills to be able to participate in infrastructure-led economic growth. Through the Masakh’iSizwe Bursary Programme, which is unique to the Western Cape, hundreds of young people have been supported to pursue their dreams of obtaining an opportunity to study in the infrastructure field at partner higher education institutions. 

Our YearBeyond Programme remains an important initiative that continues to provide unemployed young people between the ages of 18 and 25 with a helping hand as they prepare themselves for the job market.  More than 10 000 “Yeboneers” have benefited from this programme over the past 5 years.

Recently, the Western Cape Department of Cultural Affairs and Sport hosted over 1 000 youths as part of the YearBeyond Annual Conference. Much like our Day of 1 000 Opportunities initiative, this conference served as a launch pad for young people who are embarking on their journey into their future careers.

But the sobering fact remains that far too many people, especially young people, are not able to find work. We as a provincial government must take action to show them that despite their circumstances, we are here to help lift them up and show them the way to their full potential.

Programmes like our Jobseekers Travel Voucher aim to connect job seekers with potential employers. The pilot initiative offers jobseekers free travel to interviews using Golden Arrow Bus Services vehicles. The programme has recognised that access to transport is a critical hurdle for many young people seeking work opportunities.

Securing our energy future

But we cannot grow our economy if we do not have affordable, decarbonised, reliable energy supply.

We are close to 4 months with no load-shedding and an improved Energy Availability Factor (EAF) which from a generation perspective is great news. However, in the greater Energy Supply Industry (ESI) we are being confronted with the next hurdles that could lead us back to load-shedding. We must urgently fix the constrained national transmission network and distribution network that have aged and have not been developed or maintained sufficiently.

We are on track to make at least one small town in the province load shedding-free. With Riversdale, we want to show that energy security is possible outside of the major metros with their larger budgets.

We will continue to support the Electricity Minister and Eskom wherever they need it, but we will also hold them accountable where they do not perform.

The Western Cape Energy Resilience programme has already seen 2 000MW of new energy in development, and in 2023/24 alone we saw 743 MW of capacity added to the province’s power system.

Our drive towards an energy-secure future by bringing more independent power producers into the fold is being recognised by the likes of the National Energy Regulator (NERSA). According to NERSA, 39% of the total investment value of new generation projects, amounting to over R7 billion, registered from January to March 2024, is here in the Western Cape. This has led to an installed capacity of 213MW. Of the 105 new generation facilities registered, 1 in 5 (21%) are here in this province.

No sector of society was immune to the impact of power cuts. Businesses, especially SMMEs, bore the brunt. But amid the worst of the Eskom load shedding crisis, the Alternative Energy Support Programme offered support to SMMEs.  This programme has installed 12 solar backup systems at 12 municipal SMME trading hubs in 7 municipalities.

Creating jobs through tourism

All our efforts in this government are ultimately aimed at enabling more jobs. And tourism remains a key job enabler.

Tourist arrivals to Cape Town by air recorded a remarkable 16% year-on-year increase between January and March 2024, reaching 336 268 visitors. This not only shows a significant recovery but also surpasses the 2019 figure for the same period. 

And since September 2022 our Cape Town Air Access project has bought 7 new airlines and 7 new routes to Cape Town International Airport, which includes 4 new airlines and three new routes: Lusaka, Eswatini and São Paulo just in the last year.

For every 100 international visitors, the Western Cape gains R2.1 million in direct tourist spend, adds R500 000 to our GDP, and creates two local jobs.

Our province’s unique heritage plays a critical role in our tourism industry. On Friday, the 46th Session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee proclaimed World Heritage status for three sites in the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal, as part of the South African nomination.

A safe province is a prosperous province

For both our visitors and our residents, safety is absolutely essential. I am very proud of our Law Enforcement Advancement Plan (LEAP) – a leading partnership with the City of Cape Town. Since its inception, our courageous women and men who are deployed every day to some of our most crime-infested neighbourhoods across Cape Town work tirelessly to make other community members feel safer.

Armed with data, evidence, technology, and dedication, our LEAP officers have made more than 34 000 arrests – and counting.

To beat back crime, we need adequate resources, which remains a serious concern for me. Our colleagues in the South African Police Service in the Western Cape are not properly resourced. While the province’s police-to-population ratio sits at around one officer for every 417 residents - well below the national ratio of 1:435 - when you drill down to station level the figures show a very different picture. At Cloetesville Police Station the ratio is 1:1281, in De Doorns it is 1:988 and in Lwandle it is 1:958.

I am encouraged that Provincial Minister of Police Oversight and Community Safety, Anroux Marais, has had positive meetings with Western Cape Police Commissioner Lieutenant-General Patekile and the national Minister of Police.

But while I am pleased with these talks and the growing spirit of cooperative governance, I will not be satisfied until we see decentralised policing, decision-making and allocation of resources to the areas that need it the most.   

Helping the most vulnerable in our province

And while we must do everything to fight crime, we also need to look at the conditions that our residents live in. Our Department of Social Development is the heart of our government.

Where residents fall through the cracks of society, our hard-working social workers are there to catch them. For the most vulnerable it is imperative that we help them get back on their feet.

Earlier this month, the Provincial Minister of Social Development, Jaco Londt, helped to officially reopen the newly refurbished Horizon Secure Care Centre here in Cape Town.

It is one of seven such facilities in the province managed by the department that assists youth who have been in conflict with the law.

The cost of living crisis has too many households in a vice grip. We may be creating jobs, but too many residents are not feeling the relief of these economic opportunities.

No one should go to bed hungry – ever. To boost food production at the community level, from 2019 to 2023, we supported 48 smallholder producers, 172 subsistence producers, and 3 308 households in the production of food resources like food gardens.

Over this same period, we have dished up cooked meals to those in need, through 102 community nutrition and development centres and 358 soup kitchens across the province.

At our schools, more than 500 000 vulnerable learners receive free meals each year through the School Nutrition Programme.

As a team, we have already agreed that the ministers of Health, Education and Social Development will work together to identify where there are gaps in our extensive feeding schemes and how we ensure that we fight hunger with healthy, affordable meals. We must be innovative: for example, I have asked our Minister of Education to look at the possibility of sending learners, who are part of our school feeding schemes, home on a Friday with a food parcel for the weekend. Because too many of our learners get their last meal on a Friday and their next meal on a Monday morning.

Governing for our residents

There is a lot that we do as the Western Cape Government to hold municipalities to account and to support them, because it is at local government level that many vital services are delivered.

I have previously raised my frustrations with the slow and unwieldy process that we must follow through Section 139 of the Constitution when local governments fail. I have been particularly vocal about the collapse that I am seeing in my former hometown of Knysna.

While I respect the independence of local government, we cannot only intervene when everything is broken. I have raised this issue with the national Minister, and I am going to keep raising the unnecessary barriers that stand in our way to deal with collapsing service delivery.

While I am often frustrated, I am also super proud of what our municipalities do. In March this year, the results of independent research institute, Good Governance Africa’s 2024 Governance Performance Index, confirmed that many Western Cape municipalities are by far the best performing in the country.

Conclusion

I feel such a sense of achievement and pride when I see government done right, and I believe we are doing that here in the Western Cape but while we have set the bar high, we must raise it even higher.

Since the elections, we have met as a Cabinet and with Provincial Top Management to set our priorities for this term as a team. We have done so much already but we cannot afford to rest and let our guard down.

We must work harder than ever before, with purpose and determination, to ensure our province and citizens keep succeeding.

I have no delusions about the challenges that lie ahead or the crises we may face.

I have faith in our remarkable province and country; because I have seen firsthand what is possible when we work with purpose and dedication.

Let us not squander this moment in our country’s history.

Let us work together, with renewed purpose and commitment in the service of the people of our beautiful country and province.