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Premier Alan Winde’s State of the Province was big on historic projects and self-admiration but lacked a plan and a vision for a better life in the Western Cape.

In Premier Alan Winde’s rosy view of the Western Cape province, inequality doesn’t exist, just about everyone has a job, his army of LEAP officers have brought crime under control, and schools are thriving.

But the facts tell an altogether different story, of millions of people, in Cape Town alone, enduring miserable and dangerous living conditions; of quarterly crime statistics showing that the Billions of Rands the province spends on its policing initiatives have no impact on extreme murder rates; of a province that scored below average Matric results last year but still saw fit to get rid of 2400 teacher.

The Western Cape deserves a government that understands its crises and prioritizes safety, education, housing, and transport, not as political talking points, but as fundamental rights.

The Premier would have us celebrate the Conradie Park development, built on the Better Living Model. However that project is Helen Zille’s legacy and the first units were completed in 2022. The reality is the Premier has no new Better Living project to announce. The pace at which affordable housing is built in the Province is slow and has failed to undo the spatial injustices of Apartheid.

For a Province that is ravaged by Gang violence (accounting for 263 murders between October and December 2024), the Premier failed to even address the issue in his speech. He would have you believe that the LEAP Officers are on the streets arresting Gang leaders and murderers.

The Western Cape’s multi-billion-rand Safety Plan, designed to halve the murder rate in ten years, is at its halfway mark. Yet, from 2019 to 2024, the murder rate has surged by 14.32%. Despite massive financial investment and years of political rhetoric, communities remain under siege by violent crime. 

We need a new plan.

We cannot celebrate the province’s educational achievements without context. 

Yes, the Western Cape had the top performing pupil but as a Province we placed 5th in matric results, with a pass rate below the national average.  Our performance will suffer further as a result of severe and avoidable educator and teacher post cuts, another fact the Premier neglected to address, despite the protesters outside the venue.  The claim of a major budget deficit facing the Education Department is a crisis. We need more investment in early childhood education, proper infrastructure in our schools, and support for teachers who are stretched beyond capacity.

By the Premiers own admission, tens of thousands of people rely on trains daily to get to work and school and that number should be hundreds of thousands a day, as it was about ten years ago.  But Winde had no clear plan for the future of rail restoration instead he had a vague long-term ambition.  Reliable public transport is the backbone of an inclusive economy and needs to be prioritised.

If the Western Cape Government is as well run as the Premier believes, it should be put to work to deliver major change for the people it serves.  The Premiers address lacked ambitious outcomes or any projects for major transformation.

Premier Winde says this province is built on robust dialogue and listening. 

GOOD challenges him to:

•           engage with communities about the Safety Plan because it’s not working

•           engage with those who are fighting for inner city affordable housing instead of criminalising organizations like Reclaim the City

Because the Premier was right about one thing, how we respond as leaders - matters.

Issued by Brett Herron, GOOD: Secretary-General & Member of the Western Cape Parliament