DA takes on ANC over local policing
Party talks tough on law and order at manifesto launch
DA leader John Steenhuisen yesterday promised voters his party will fight to stop government moves to create a single police service that would result in cities losing control over metro police.
Steenhuisen was speaking at the presentation of the DA’s manifesto ahead of the local government elections on November 1.
He cited the performance of DA-controlled municipalities to convince voters the DA governs better.
“We want all South Africans to feel safe and free in their own neighbourhoods or out on their farms, and we will help protect them and take their streets back from the criminals,” Steenhuisen said.
“Ultimately our goal is to devolve much of the policing functions from national government to competent metros and municipalities, and we will fight national government’s attempts to bring all metro police departments and municipal law enforcement into one centralised police service. We will take this fight all the way to the Constitutional Court if we must.”
The DA’s manifesto document says metro police are crucial in the fight against crime.
“DA local governments are at the forefront of municipal law and traffic enforcement while supporting SAPS with their crime-prevention mandate. While policing is a national function, we will fight to increasingly devolve it to the provincial and local level,” Steenhuisen said.
The manifesto says the DA “will similarly oppose the attempts to centralise all traffic enforcement in a national traffic service by opposing improper provisions in the Administrative Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences and the Road Traffic Management Corporation acts.”
The creation of a single police service is
an ANC resolution first adopted in Polokwane in 2007, and reaffirmed by the Mangaung and Nasrec conferences. However, the matter has not reached parliament.
The DA said specialised police units, such as for rural safety, should be reintroduced nationally, but were also important locally when tailored according to the nature of prevalent crime in certain regions.
In the City of Cape Town, where the DA has governed since 2006, there are metro police units focused on gangs, a problem that has been plaguing the city for decades. The party has also been campaigning on the issue of safety and security in rural areas, citing farm murders to drive its argument.
Steenhuisen singled out DA-run municipalities as the measure of excellence in local government, as opposed to ANC-run municipalities that he said are prone to corruption and service delivery challenges.
In his praise of DA-run municipalities, he not only focused on the City of Cape Town, but pointed at other smaller municipalities.
“Here I’m talking about municipalities
run by the DA. Whether it’s a town like Stellenbosch, Swellendam or Mossel Bay in the Western Cape, whether it’s Kouga in the Eastern Cape or Midvaal in Gauteng, the contrast between these municipalities and those run by the ANC is staggering.
This contrast is so unmistakable that in some places you can literally see the DA difference in the road under your feet as you cross the boundary.
“And it doesn’t matter which independent criteria you use — whether we’re talking clean audits in the auditor-general’s report, whether we’re talking municipal rankings by Ratings Afrika, whether we’re talking the results of the Citizen Satisfaction Index, or whether we’re talking the unemployment numbers put out by Stats SA — DA governments consistently come out on top.”
Steenhuisen said that even though the DA governs less than 10% of SA’s municipalities, the top five municipalities in terms of performance are all DA-run.
He said this success was due to the DA’s obsession with doing the basics well, including
mundane tasks such as refuse collection, filling potholes and managing the housing lists. “We have zero tolerance for corruption, and we have an obsession to reduce any unauthorised or irregular expenditure as low as we possibly can.
“In other words, to spend every cent of public money in the most efficient manner and where it makes the most impact,” said Steenhuisen.
“In this manifesto you will see how DA governments work hard to make communities water-secure, and particularly in the drought-stricken parts of the country like the Eastern Cape. Having successfully fought off Day Zero in Cape Town, DA governments are using learnings from that episode to mitigate the drought in Nelson Mandela Bay through measures such as faster leak repairs, flow restrictors, sinking boreholes and running public awareness campaigns.”
Steenhuisen said the DA was working on making six municipalities in the Western Cape “load-shedding-proof” through its municipal “energy resilience project”.