DA leaders slate ANC

ANC COUNCILLORS are like a tokoloshe – you talk about them but you just never see them, DA MP Donald Lee told his party's supporters in Nelson Mandela Bay's Kleinskool area yesterday.

Lee, DA Eastern Cape leader Athol Trollip and provincial chairman Edmund van Vuuren were campaigning in Kleinskool and Malabar yesterday, canvassing for votes in the May 7 polls.

The party leaders spoke at length about the ANC's failures and what they believe were empty promises made by President Jacob Zuma.

They addressed a crowd of more than 1000 supporters at Kleinskool's Govan Mbeki Multipurpose Centre and a smaller gathering at the Malabar Community Centre.

In Kleinskool, Lee laid into the ANC, saying they only became visible when it was election time.

"They don't care about you. They will bring you a food parcel to buy your vote. That's what they think you're worth, a food parcel every five years.

"The DA wants to deliver services to all the people."

Trollip said the ANC could not be trusted because it put Zuma in charge even though his name had come up in several scandals over the years, including what he said was a corrupt relationship with convicted fraudster Schabir Shaick.

"The ANC can no longer identify proper leaders.

"There's lots of money available to address our challenges in this country but it's not being used properly; it's being misused," Trollip said.

"The ANC says, 'give us information about corruption and we'll investigate'. I don't know how many letters I've written to [Local Government MEC Mlibo] Qoboshiyane. Here, in Nelson Mandela Bay, no one's doing anything about the Pikoli and Kabuso forensic reports.

"On May 7, we are asking you to vote for proper leaders. If you choose Zuma, you will be signing a contract for five years to get the same as you've received over the past five years." Touching on ANC criticism that the DA was a "whites only" party, Trollip encouraged those in attendance to look around the hall. There were mostly black and coloured supporters at yesterday's gatherings.

"The ANC forgets its own Freedom Charter which says that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white.

"But the DA says it's better to have one black hand, one brown hand and one white hand all together than two white hands or two black hands. We must reach out to people of other races."

He said the DA had built a strong foundation and the walls for its house, and would erect the roof on May 7.

In Malabar, Van Vuuren raised concerns about the apparent lack of action by the government to protect pupils and teachers from gangsters. He said safety in schools had been discussed since the early 1990s. "Government just talks and talks, but we expect them to put preventative measures in place. Only now are they saying [they will] look into the matter.

"They are doing nothing to protect our children, not like the DA-run government in Cape Town which has security at the schools in the dangerous areas." - Rochelle de Kock