Concerns around foreign land ownership and exclusion of locals has been thrown back into the spotlight.
DA Gauteng Provincial Leader Solly Msimanga has defended his party’s running of the Western Cape amid a housing crisis in Cape Town and claims of locals being excluded from owning propery in certain areas.
Addressing the Gauteng Provincial Legislature on Friday during a no confidence motion debate on Premier Panyaza LesufI, Msimanga responded to comparisons between Gauteng and the Western Cape.
He said the DA-run Western Cape was able to attract greater foreign property investment because of “a proper infrastructure investment plan” and “better security”.
He claimed the province had also attracted major political rivals, including President Cyril Ramaphosa and ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula, who owned property in the province.
But this foreign property ownership was questioned by the EFF, who claimed it was blocking local land ownership and worsening the housing crisis in the province.
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‘Look at the laws’
Msimanga did not respond to South Africans being excluded from land ownership but argued that international investment was a global phenomenon that was even found in areas like Sandton in Gauteng.
“They are allowed to come here. Laying that on the DA is misleading and is misplaced. You must look at the laws, if you want to change that, and don’t blame the DA for being able to attract millions and billions of rands that is coming from outside of South Africa into the country.”
He said delivering services would attract people to the province.
“Planning, implementation, and holding people to account is what is going to ensure that government is moving in the direction that is supposed to be moving. It is what is going to ensure that people are attracted to your province, town, and suburb.
“That’s when government works for the people, that’s when there’s attraction, that’s when you get investment, and that’s when you get a better quality of life.”
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Jacobs promises to address housing crisis
The PA’s Cape Town mayoral candidate Liam Jacobs was sworn in as a councillor on Friday, and immediately set out plans to address inequality in the city.
In a message to supporters, he said he would be sworn in as mayor in a year’s time, and would address the housing crisis.
“We are going to do that together. We are going to fight for a more affordable Cape Town and solve the housing crisis.
“We are going to make sure Cape Town is safer. Not by criminalising or over-policing, but by healing communities.
“We are going to make sure that Cape Town is going to be a Cape Town not just for some of us, not for those on one side of the mountain only, but a Cape Town for all of us.”
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