As we near the end of 2023, we reflect on the highs and lows of the past year. Our province and country have been made to endure another challenging year, as a result of massive failures by national government. On Tuesday, it was announced that the contraction of the economy in the third quarter sparked fears of a looming technical recession. Statistics South Africa announced that economic activity declined by 0.2% in the three months since September. This is the first time this year that the economy has shrunk as the chronic energy crisis and logistics nightmare takes its toll.
Rolling power cuts worsened in 2023, hampering economic growth and negatively impacting employment across multiple sectors. In 2023, and as of early September, our country and citizens had to fumble in the dark for 227 days of power cuts. And it gets worse. As of 30 November 2023, South Africa has experienced 322 days of load shedding – the worst on record. This means that South Africans have only experienced 12 days without load shedding in 2023.
On the rare occasion when the lights are on, businesses, investors, and companies are left counting the cost of this ongoing calamity. The cost is counted in the hundreds and thousands of jobs lost this year due to load shedding. Nearly a billion rand goes down the drain each day due to rolling power cuts.
This disaster – sadly now synonymous with South Africa – is exacerbated by ever-increasing electricity prices, which push up the cost of living making it even more difficult for our residents, especially the poor, to survive.
Caught in the midst of these challenges are our residents, many of whom feel abandoned. They look to us for hope. And rightfully so. It is this government’s singular obsession to keep delivering for you, our residents.
Whether faced with natural disasters, like the September floods or a deadly mini-bus taxi strike, we act with purpose and urgency, with the needs of our residents always front of mind. We lead by delivering the best possible essential services. We are building a fertile jobs ecosystem driven by our Growth For Jobs plan.
We are enabling and empowering local governments to help us resolve the energy crisis through our Energy Resilience Programme, which is already delivering encouraging results.
Our growing provincial economy is the product of a government that cares for and responds to the needs of our residents, no matter what.
The Western Cape is doing more with less
Yet even in the face of perennial issues and adversities, including the catastrophic energy crisis, alarmingly high unemployment and crime levels, and the calamitous fiscal crisis forced on us by national government – we still manage to build hope for the future. This hope is embodied in the jobs we help to create. The most recent Quarterly Labour Force Survey confirmed that not only did we create more jobs between quarter three of 2022 and quarter three of this year than any other province, with more than 300 000 new jobs, but we also have the lowest unemployment rate.
We have maintained and improved our already impeccable track record of good governance. This was confirmed when all our departments and entities received unqualified audits in the 2022/23 financial year – the best audit results in years!
As we reflect on the hard work this government puts into making a difference in the lives of our residents, we must also be candid. We still have a long road ahead of us.
Unemployment and crime remain a daily reality for too many of our vulnerable residents. Levels of unemployment and crime are still intolerably high.
Give us our R1,1 billion or see you in court because we will not allow our most vulnerable citizens to suffer
With this Adjustments budget, the Department aims to reprioritise resources to further enable our strategic priorities and build a stable, resilient budgetary base for our province.
However, a deeply constrained fiscus places us under immense pressure. Devastating in-year budget cuts, forced on us by a callous national government, will make it even more difficult for us to take our successes forward. Make no mistake about it, this fiscal calamity will be devastating.
We would be able to do so much more to offer residents of our province hope and worth if we could work with a national government that does not live in a parallel reality.
But do we shy away from this vast challenge? Do we do what our colleagues at the Union Buildings seem to be doing: sticking their heads in the sand and avoiding the reality of the situation? No!
We have repeatedly raised this issue with national government, only to be met with perfunctory and empty acknowledgements of our correspondence.
In the face of this apparent ambivalence, the WCG has taken this fight to the doorstep of the Union Buildings.
We have declared an intergovernmental dispute. This was not an easy decision to make. However, we have no choice. Our message to President Cyril Ramaphosa is simple: Give us the R1.1 Billion shortfall owed, not just to us but to our residents too, or we will have no option but to meet you in court.
Not only will we have to precariously navigate our way through catastrophic budget cuts, but now national government appears to be steamrolling ahead with the National Health Insurance Bill, which has been passed by the National Council of Provinces. We have on multiple occasions raised our concerns over this bill and its constitutionality. And in the face of this catastrophic fiscal crisis, we have to ask – how will we fund this?
Every single citizen in our province and country deserves quality healthcare and universal medical insurance. However, the bill in its current form is impractical, unconstitutional and unaffordable. We intend to write to President Ramaphosa to ventilate our concerns once again. The bill should be sent back to the National Assembly, in terms of section 79 of the Constitution, for reconsideration.
Hitch Frenzy
Van is getting married, but he and his fiancee have never done the deed – in fact he\’s never been with any woman before. He\’s getting more and more nervous as the big day approaches, so he confides in his friend. His friend says \’No worries man. I\’ll come by the honeymoon suite before you guys get there, and I\’ll hide behind the curtain, and I\’ll whisper instructions to you.\’
\’You\’d do that for me?\’
\’Sure thing man!\’
So the wedding day arrives, it was a lovely service (so I was told, I wasn\’t there myself) and Van\’s friend sneaks into the honeymoon suite as promised and hides behind the curtain.
Van and his new wife arrive in the room, get settled on the bed, and things are getting steamy.
But Van is still super nervous and his tummy is bubbling, so he murmers to his wife, \’Listen babe, I\’m just gonna go to the bathroom quick. I think it\’s that wors roll from earlier.\’
\’Sure thing babe.\’
So Van goes into the bathroom, and he\’s taking quite a long time. And his wife is starting to feel the nerves herself. And it\’s getting worse. She can\’t hold it in. But she doesn\’t want to go after he\’s gone and totally ruin the mood. So she looks around and finally finds a shoebox. Quickly, she does her business in the shoebox, and she shoves it under the bed just as Van comes back from the loo.
Van gets back on the bed and they go at it again. But after a minute or so Van smells something not so lekker.
\’What\’s that smell?\’
\’Nothing babe,\’ he wife tries to assure him.
\’No man there\’s definitely something not so lekker in this room!\’VSo Van starts looking around the room, in the corners, in the cupboard, and finally he looks under the bed, and sees the shoebox.
He pull it out, and opens it up, and in horror he shouts \’Sies! Daar\’s kak in hierdie doos!\’
And from behind the curtain his friend yells, \’NEE MAN, DRAAI HAAR OM!\”
Backstreet
Fun South African Fact: The Dutch and the British fought over South Africa.