Cape Town - Cape Town's biggest townships Mitchells Plain and Khayelitsha will be deciding factors in who will govern the Western Cape after the May 8 elections.
How parties address the socio-economic issues in these two areas will help determine how people will vote.
With a combined population of roughly 2million, the townships had over the past five years been plagued by gang violence, drugs, massive housing and socio-economics problems, and poor service delivery. The ANC, DA and Freedom Front Plus outlined plans on how they would address these problems once they took office.
The ANC provincial secretary Faiez Jacobs said Khayelitsha and Mitchells Plain were the two biggest townships for the ANC.
“Housing delivery is key for us. We will scrap the high water rates because people didn’t create the crisis. It was the drought, but also mismanagement of the city. The installation of water, sanitation and electricity are also going to be key.
“Our priority will be to use the money the DA had and didn’t spend on urban settlement, for infrastructure improvement like pipes, water and sanitation. More than 600000 housing units are needed.
“The last time we delivered 16000 housing units as the ANC, and we will see how we can maintain that, if not build more,” Jacobs said.
“We will also quickly look at socio-economic issues. We will tackle the criminal economy, identify gangs and put them behind bars through the Prevention of Organised Crime Act.”
Meanwhile, the DA’s premier
candidate Alan Winde indicated
that the DA-run Western Cape on Monday launched the Woodlands Integrated Residential Development Programme housing project in Mitchells Plain, which would yield 440 housing opportunities.
“We have already delivered district hospitals to Mitchells Plain and Khayelitsha. We will work with all stakeholders to expand the provision of quality accessible health care to all residents of the Western Cape. We will refuse to implement the ANC’s disastrous NHI plan that will take resources away from the people of Mitchells Plain and Khayelitsha,” Winde said.
The FF+ premier candidate Peter Marais puts the problems at the doorstep of the central government, saying that the province is not a federal system where provinces have autonomous authority. “If I am premier, I would instruct the provincial MEC of local government and social services to jointly draw up plans with the City of Cape Town and devise a strategy on how to assist the city financially and administratively to resolve this issues.
“Only through co-operative government can we resolve all these issues,” Marais said.