Cause for suspicion

I READ the letter “Diverting Attention” (Cape Times, March 9, 2015) by the Greater Cape Town Civic Alliance’s Lester September with the thought uppermost in my mind that the GCTCA is supposed to be an independent organ of civil society.

They are there to represent me as a resident of greater Cape Town, charged in particular with guarding how the rates and taxes I pay to the state are spent. And yet all I read in September’s tirade was criticism of the local and provincial spheres of government that have far smaller budgets than national government.

Even where Premier Helen Zille had clearly addressed his concerns (and corrected his incorrect assertions), there was only a grudging acknowledgement by September of the fact that he had made erroneous and sometimes blatantly false statements.

Perhaps the GCTCA staff don’t bother to criticise national government because they know their criticism will fall on deaf ears, because the ANC continues to treat government as its personal piggy bank and waste people’s money on corruption and graft, Nkandla and purchasing weapons we don’t really need and don’t have the staff to use or budgets to maintain.

Perhaps it’s easier to criticise the city and province because its DA-led administrations are responsive and don’t tell residents to keep their dirty votes.

Perhaps the GCTCA folk don’t bother to criticise the ANC-led national government because they are yet another stalking horse for the ruling party, who wish to subvert the will of the majority of voters in the city.

The GCTCA is supposed to represent me as a resident of greater Cape Town, but I didn’t ever elect its staff and I don’t know anyone who did. Their selective criticism of local and provincial government, coupled with their unwillingness to acknowledge that national government’s failures impact directly on the lives of people in Cape Town are cause for suspicion. M Andrews

Somerset West