‘How we’ll get SA firing on all cylinders’
As the elections draw closer, The Herald is providing space for political leaders to share their plans to tackle some of the province’s most pressing issues. Today Action SA and Rise Mzansi have their say
We asked ActionSA Eastern Cape premier candidate Athol Trollip:
What strategies does your party propose to address job creation in the Eastern Cape?
First, we recognise that without economic growth we cannot break the cycle of dependency and social challenges.
To grow the economy we must address the challenges that militate against local and foreign direct investment, primarily crime, corruption, ineffective economic infrastructure (road and rail), energy and water insecurity, and an incoherent and hostile policy environment for investors.
The rural areas are poverty stricken, leading to record urbanisation and social challenges such as dislocation of families and people seeking employment living on the periphery of cities in terrible twilight conditions.
This province neglects agricultural and tourism stimulation at our collective peril of unemployment. We must also improve our productivity to attract investment.
How does your party plan to address rising crime?
We need to adequately resource and compensate an effective and efficient SAPS that is well led and disciplined to ensure a just and safe society.
We must absorb all reservists into the SAPS and recruit fit-for-purpose officers.
We need specialised crime units such as anti-corruption, drugs, rape and gender-based violence, gangsterism and organised crime.
We need special courts to process these cases.
We need to allocate a fixed percentage of the national budget
to fight crime and capacitate the police and prosecution services to identify, charge, prosecute and sentence perpetrators of priority crimes.
As for our province and city being the crime capitals of the country and the Bay being the ninth most violent city in the world, shame on our government.
Despite improvement in the matric pass rate in the Eastern Cape, schools grapple with deep-seated challenges. How does your party intend to provide support?
Education is an area of catastrophic failure and all the breast beating about the matric pass rate is nonsensical, especially as the attrition rate of pupils lost between grade 1 and 12 is not taken into account. Grade 4 pupils can’t read with comprehension and students are hungry and without accommodation.
We will focus on early childhood development and remunerate and support properly trained practitioners properly so children arrive at grade R and 1 with a good grasp of basic counting, writing and having had the experience of being read to.
We will improve teaching methods using technology and digital tools, reform the curriculum and align it with global requirements and add a vocational stream after grade 10.
To fund this, we will cut all wasteful and vanity expenditure such as VIP protection.
The healthcare system in the province is ineffective and unreliable. How does your party plan to overhaul it?
We are opposed to the NHI, especially considering how dysfunctional the existing public health services are.
We don’t believe you can improve this by doing away with private and medical aid health services, and would encourage a partnership approach between the two to bring out the best of both systems.
We will employ SA doctors and pay them globally competitive salaries.
Health and hospitals must be led at ministerial and administrative level by doctors or medically trained professionals.
The level of care in public health is appalling and our doctors and nurses are paid very poorly.
If we reduced corruption and theft dramatically we could pay doctors, teachers, police officers and firefighters properly and could expect much better service.