LYDENBURG – The DA’s provincial leadership has been on tour throughout the entire Mpumalanga, and Messrs Anthony Benadie and James Masango, and Ms Sonja Boshoff recently paid a visit to the town.
A business breakfast was held at the De Ark guesthouse where Benadie addressed local business owners on service delivery and governance issues.
Benadie said he was grateful to be in Lydenburg again. “It was formally my constituency and I used to visit often. Sonja has, however, now taken over the political leadership as she has been elected to parliament.
I want to touch on a subject whereby the media and commentators say the DA has turned its back on its traditional supporters. If you however, take into account the DA winning the by-election in Lydenburg and Middelburg recently and also the wards we won in White River and Nelspruit, it is clear that the our traditional support base is still secure, intact and in place.
This is critically important to us because no political party can survive without its traditional supporters or the foundation which formed that organisation.”
He said the DA was one of the only growing political parties in South Africa. “If the EFF participate there will be two growing political parties. The election in May is a crossroads election for us. After May 7 we will see the disappearance of some political parties and the maturity of the South African democracy.
I think it is going to be an election where the ANC is going to face its toughest challenge and come out severely bruised. This will be a time when the DA will see its biggest growth since 1994.”
He said this was real life, in a real country with real people with real problems and challenges. “This is a real country and nation that needs to be taken care off. On May 7 the question for business people and Afrikaans people will be; Are we part of the future of this country or not?”
Benadie said the so-called “born-frees” will be voting in this election that has no connection to the apartheids era and this would give a new dimension to politics because these individuals look at South Africa in a total different way.
“All things come to an end. All things have their own time frame. It is inevitable that the ANC will lose power nationally. I can tell you now that they will lose power by 2019. Listen to what I am saying today; May 7 is the last time the ANC will win the national election.”
He said Thaba Chweu Municipality was probably the worst run municipality in Mpumalanga. “This place is a disaster. If it weren’t for the DA councillors, people like Farhad Essack trying and working at the municipality day after day, things in TCM would have been a lot worse. The place is totally bankrupt.
Electricity and water supply are disastrous, the sewage running into the river is a humanitarian disaster of note waiting to happen. The roads are a nightmare and the most basics amenities for life are busy collapsing right around you.”
Benadie said it did not have to be like that. “TCM should be right up there competing with the likes of Cape Town if you take into accounting all the tourist attractions and destinations. There should be thousands of international tourists flocking to Lydenburg on a daily basis.
Unfortunately bus operators are no longer willing to take the risk on the poor roads. That should be a basic thing that should be fixed. But when I go talk to the MEC and premier about Lydenburg nothing gets done. You are financially worse off today than you were ever before.”
He said that on May 8 the DA’s campaign would start to win TCM by 2016. “That, however, is not a DA campaign, it is your campaign. That is where business owners like you will have to understand that the only change to this town will be brought by a change in governance.
I do not predict that the ANC will wake up one morning and say; we have done a bad job, let’s go to the office and do it properly from now on. That is just not on the cards. You are going to have to put your muscle, your business, your funds, your everything behind a massive community drive to make sure that the DA wins this municipality by 2016.
Only when we win this municipality can we turn things around and start delivering services and fix what is wrong here. All is not lost; everything can be fixed if we have the political will that the DA has to actually fix it.”
