Letter: Metro will move forward with change in local govt

After 22 years of neglect, our metro is in desperate need of change. At this year’s election, we will have an opportunity to vote for a party with a proven track record of good governance that consistently delivers better services, stops corruption and creates jobs.

While reading J Horn’s letter (“Jordaan just focuses on job at hand”, June 21), I couldn’t help but notice glaring inconsistencies in this government’s bulleted list of supposed “achievements”. Oddly the writer twice refers to cash holdings, failing in both instances to grasp the harsh reality that the only reason the municipality has money in its bank account is because nothing is being spent on service delivery.

What good is money in the bank if people are still using bucket toilets, living in shacks without electricity or water, and having to face a lifetime of unemployment?

All indigent households in the DA-led City of Cape Town have access to water, sanitation, electricity and solid waste management.

Athol Trollip has on many occasions explained that this model will be replicated here in the Bay by actually spending money on improving service delivery and not simply celebrating it being in the municipality’s bank account.

The DA’s record of clean governance produces clean audits year after year, in stark contrast to the latest auditor-general report on Nelson Mandela Bay, where more than R1.5-billion was wasted, R1.348-billion of which was as a result of broken supply chain management. Sir, computerising supply chain management will only allow endemic corruption to happen more rapidly under the watch of an imploding ANC.

The DA understands that corruption in this municipality will not be eradicated by placing people in front of computers or sending a handful of corrupt officials home on full pay, but rather by laying criminal charges, conducting end-to-end forensic audits and enforcing municipal by-laws. This the DA will do from our first day in office.

It is this smart and clean style of governance that confirms the DA’s commitment to stopping corruption in its tracks.

With the recent appointment of Linda Mti to high office in the Bay, a man who is under investigation for fraud and corruption amounting to more than R2-billion, this government has confirmed its desire to employ corruption rather than fight it.

Only the DA has credible plans to roll out a functional IPTS and metro police service, as has been done in the City of Cape Town. The metro police in Cape Town makes more than 6 000 arrests a year and has reduced violent crime by 20% in some of the city’s more dangerous communities.

The ANC has proven that it cannot be trusted to deliver in the Bay, having launched an illegal police force and having bungled the R2.5-billion IPTS. It doesn’t matter who the mayor is, the ANC will always be the ANC.

Only a change in government will take our metro forward again, and I’m ready to see our metro up there with the best in the country.