GOOD Speech

CLEAN ON PAPER, CORRUPT IN PRACTICE: CITY OF CAPE TOWN RAIDS

/ GOOD Speech / By

Late on Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning, police raids were carried out, and at the heart of the raids was the City of Cape Town. This is a sobering reminder that while this government never misses an opportunity to boast about being “better than everyone else,” the truth may be that they are simply better at hiding.
Because when SAPS arrives with warrants linked to tender fraud on the scale of R1.6 billion, we are compelled to ask: how did the City manage to have all these so-called “clean audits”? What lies beneath the glossy reports, if billions of rands of public money are under investigation?

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FROM SAFETY PLAN TO SAFETY SHAM

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That is nearly three murders every single day. Or, to put it plainly: one gang-related killing every eight hours. We cannot allow ourselves to grow numb to these numbers.
They are not abstract. They represent lives lost, families torn apart, and communities living under siege.
Yet, yesterday, when I sat down to hear the so-called review of the Safety Plan, I did not hear urgency. I did not hear honesty. I did not hear accountability.  The review we were promised did not happen. It was a disgrace. A profound letdown. A review, by definition, means assessing whether a plan has worked, what has failed, and what must change.  It means testing claims against evidence, admitting shortcomings, and facing hard truths.

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TAXI VIOLENCE: DA INACTION FUELS ROUTE WARS

/ GOOD Speech / By

 The recent taxi violence, and this week’s decision to shut down taxi routes, is a direct failure of government, in particular the Western Cape and City of Cape Town, to address the systemic and outdated transport regulation regime.
A decade ago, the Ntsebeza Commission recommended that the Province and the City improve the regulation of taxi routes and permits, since poorly managed licensing and route disputes were the direct driver of the violence.
This has not happened.

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THE SAFETY PLAN HAS FAILED: YOU CANNOT ARREST AWAY INEQUALITY

/ GOOD Speech / By

 The Western Cape has been gripped by violent crime that tears through communities, destabilises families, overwhelms clinics, and threatens schools.
But crime does not fall from the sky.
Let’s begin with the roots.
The blood on our streets is not about “bad people making bad choices.”
It is apartheid’s spatial planning. Entire communities dumped on the margins. Overcrowded. Stripped of opportunity. Trapped in poverty.
And this government? They have not fixed it. They’ve made it worse.

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POLICING, ON ITS OWN, WILL NEVER STOP WESTERN CAPE GANGSTERISM

/ GOOD Speech / By

A recent surge in the number of gang-related crimes led to a flurry of pronouncements by top police brass this week, including an admission by the Acting Minister that the police had no coherent plan to stop it. What was strikingly absent was any discussion about addressing dysfunctional social environments; about the roles the Departments of Social Development, Education and Sport, the City of Cape Town and Western Cape Province should be playing to fix the fabric of communities.

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WESTERN CAPE SAFETY PLAN: TIME TO TACKLE THE REAL CAUSES OF CRIME

/ GOOD Speech / By

The Western Cape Government has the mandate and the capacity to change the living conditions that are the root causes of violent crime. This government must use its powers, mandates and resources more effectively, instead of dabbling in policing and then complaining about how poor policing is. There are good people in every organization, but recent developments regarding SAPS have shown the level of dysfunction at the heart of policing in South Africa.

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BEYOND WESTERN CAPE HOUSING BACKLOGS: BREAKING NEW GROUND OR BREAKING PROMISES? 

/ GOOD Speech / By

The name of South Africa’s national free basic housing programme “Breaking New Ground” is deeply ironic in the Western Cape. Very little “ground” has in fact been broken when it comes to affordable housing in Cape Town and across the province. According to the Minister of Infrastructure, a resident of Drakenstein has been waiting 62 years for a home. Delivery numbers remain dismal, with only 3,046 houses were built in the last financial year. At that rate, it will take over 220 years to clear the backlog.

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CAPE TOWN DOESN’T NEED PHOTO-OPS… IT NEEDS HOMES

/ GOOD Speech / By

This government is acting less like a serious administration and more like Hollywood in a creativity crisis. Instead of producing bold, new projects, we just get endless reboots of the same tired story. This very same piece of land, Founders Garden, was announced for development in 2010 as part of the Cape Town Central City Regeneration Programme. Then it was re-announced in 2016 for social housing. And again in 2019, Cabinet approved its release. Now here we are in 2025, and suddenly we’re expected to stand, clap, and act like this is a blockbuster premiere. Why, after years of fanfare, photo-ops and recycled announcements, has there been no concrete progress on delivering homes for the people who need them?

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WESTERN CAPE, A PROVINCE THAT CARES… IF YOU ARE A RICH TOURIST

/ GOOD Speech / By

Amid a well-documented budget crisis, the Western Cape Government, City of Cape Town, and the Border Management Authority have unveiled a new plan for tourists arrivals. Premier Alan Winde assures us that “these young women and men will not only give operations a boost, they will also serve as ambassadors for our province.” Tourism is important, visitors bring in revenue and support local businesses, but what is not explained is how government suddenly finds money to make the tourist immigration experience smoother, while ordinary South Africans’ pleas for basic services are ignored.

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WOMEN’S MONTH: ADVANCING GENDER EQUALITY AT HOME AND ABROAD

/ GOOD Speech / By

I stand here today and recognise a reality that should give us all pause: I am one of 28 men in this provincial parliament, while only 14 of our colleagues are women. That means women make up just one third of the voices in this chamber. It is a stark reminder that even here, in the heart of our democracy, gender equality is far from achieved.

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