Date: 10/05/2011
Source: The Inkatha Freedom Party
Title: IFP: Buthelezi: Address by the president of the IFO, to the people of Hanover Park, in the Western Cape

Thank you for welcoming the IFP into the community of Hanover Park.
This morning I visited the Day Hospital and Ihlaas Mosque, and met
many people as I walked though the streets. Everywhere I went I heard
the same message, that people are worried about this dog fight between
the DA and the ANC, because somewhere along the line the real needs of
the people of Hanover Park have been forgotten.

I have come to Hanover Park aware that some of you may not know the
IFP very well, although we have been part of the politics of South
Africa for 35 years and have made a difference to governance both
before and since 1994. The IFP is the voice of reason in South African
politics. You don't hear about violent service delivery protests in
IFP led municipalities. You don't hear about the IFP calling
politicians vulgar names. And you don't hear about the IFP fighting
over open toilets for more than two years.

We are the people that get the job done, because we know that
governance is all about you. The IFP has 18 representatives in
Parliament and some 900 Councilors in municipalities across South
Africa. We led the administration of the erstwhile KwaZulu Government
for 18 years before democracy, and we served in the Government of
National Unity for the first five years after 1994. Even after that,
President Mbeki asked me to continue serving in his Cabinet as the
Minister of Home Affairs. I have been appointed Acting President of
the country more than 20 times.

I recount these facts to emphasise that the IFP is not the new kid on
the block, and neither are we a small voice. We have helped shape the
laws and policies of our country, but we have also stood in strong
opposition to the many missteps the ANC government has taken, because
our first priority is to the people. For 35 years the IFP has served
the poorest South Africans, as well as the workers. We have struggled
alongside the unemployed, the parents, the caregivers and
entrepreneurs. We have worked for you.

We have never let power corrupt us nor forgotten that we serve because
of the mandate you, the people, have given us. We are your
representatives. The IFP has therefore made this election campaign all
about you. We chose our slogan to send a clear message to leaders who
have put other interests first; like politics, money and power. I
think people need to be reminded that it's about you, because local
government can make a difference. Your vote counts.

I have been travelling across KwaZulu Natal, Mpumalanga and Gauteng
for several weeks now, encouraging people to vote next Wednesday in
the local government elections. In many democracies, including our
own, citizens don't often come out in numbers to vote at this level.
People somehow feel that they cannot make a difference in local
government, because everything has already been decided at the
national and provincial level.

The Western Cape is unique, because the ANCs blanket rule ends on the
provincial boundaries. For the ANC, taking control of the Western Cape
in the May 18 elections is a matter of pride. In fact, they haven't
put forward a mayoral candidate anywhere else in South Africa other
than Cape Town, because the ANC knows that if it is going to take the
Western Cape from the DA, it is going to have to fight hard.

The fight for Cape Town is therefore very public and people are
expected to take sides with either the DA or the ANC. That is quite
disheartening for many people, because it's a choice between the ANC's
incompetence or the DA's arrogance. I am here to point out that there
is an alternative. There is another way. I have come to Hanover Park
to support the IFP's candidates, because they are men and women who
know you and are known to you. They are people of integrity that are
backed by the IFP's track record.

The IFP has an exceptional track record in governance and service
delivery. In KwaZulu Natal we still run more municipalities than the
ANC, because at local government level, where services are actually
delivered, people still want a party that can get the job done. That
party is the IFP. The electorate has given us the mandate to lead 32
municipalities, and we have had the opportunity to prove that we do it
better than the ANC.

In many other municipalities across the country, people have
strengthened the voice of the IFP by giving us their vote. This is
what we would like to see in Hanover Park. We are asking for your vote
next Wednesday to strengthen a different voice in your local council;
a voice of reason and a voice of integrity. You don't have to give
your allegiance to people simply because they govern. And you don't
have to vote for their opponent as a way of saying you don't like
them. You can choose something entirely different. You can vote for
the IFP.

A vote for the IFP can make a difference for Hanover Park, because the
IFP candidates are backed by a strong party; a party that is still a
serious threat to the ANC. We are not the kind of people who sling mud
at others to make ourselves look good, but there is a time and a place
to take a hard look at the people asking for your vote, and ask
whether they are the right people for the job.

The DA's mayoral candidate, Ms Patricia de Lille, started in the Pan
Africanist Congress before she went solo with the Independent
Democrats. Then, last August, she took the ID to the DA, and now the
DA is promoting her for mayor. She may have great credentials and she
may be good at her job, but there is a bad habit in politics of giving
positions as payback. The ANC has found itself in bitter battles
because of this habit. Cadres get their feathers ruffled because there
are just not enough top positions to satisfy everyone who feels they
are owed a position.

This is why the ANC is having problems with its candidate lists,
because candidates chosen by the people to represent them have simply
been removed from the lists and replaced with people chosen by the
ANC. This shows how little the ANC actually cares about the will of
the people. Their representatives are not accountable to you; they are
accountable to the ANC.

This is, unfortunately, true for Mr Tony Ehrenreich as well. The ANC's
mayoral candidate, who is also the provincial secretary of COSATU here
in the Western Cape, has a reputation for being a man of the people.
But he has made no bones about the fact that he intends to align the
economic polices of the Western Cape with those of the national
government. Indeed, he has listed this as one of his top three
priorities as mayoral candidate.

Mr Ehrenreich lives near here, in Uitsig. But don't think that a local
lad can change the way things are done in Hanover Park, just because
he lives here. He has a mandate to line up local governance here with
the way governance is done by the ANC everywhere else. So wherever
national policies have failed, you can expect the same failure to dog
the Western Cape if the ANC wins this election.

His other two top priorities are to improve public transport and
provide water and sanitation to informal settlements. But his party's
track record in both these cases is not inspiring. In fact, they
overspent by millions of Rand to get the Gautrain up and running. But
a ticket from Pretoria to OR Tambo Airport still costs R125. That is
not affordable for most of us. Interestingly, China constructed a
rapid rail system at about the same time as we embarked on the
Gautrain project; but it was twice the speed, twice the length, and
cost them half as much. Surely we could be doing better.

In terms of providing water and sanitation to informal settlements,
one cannot help remembering Andries Tatane, who was beaten to death by
the Police during a service delivery protest in the ANC-led settlement
near Ficksburg. Then there is the community of Zandspruit, who had to
resort to violent protest against their ANC councilor for
non-delivery, because the councilor would not listen to the people she
had promised to represent.

Service delivery protests are par for the course in ANC-led
municipalities. So when an ANC candidate says they can do better in
Hanover Park by doing things the ANC way, we must ask ourselves if
that is the truth, or just another ANC promise.

The ANC has not made any friends in the Western Cape by allowing the
government spokesperson, Mr Jimmy Manyi, to vent his racist spleen
against the coloured community. Mr Ehrenreich would have us believe
that Mr Manyi isn't the spokesperson on these issues. But he speaks
for the national ANC government, and Mr Ehrenreich wants to align
policies here with the national ANC government policies. So it would
be foolish not to ask whether the ANC's determined pursuit of
affirmative action and the setting of employment equity targets is
really going to be based on provincial demographics, or whether this
community is about the get the raw end of the deal.

These are issues being discussed in the public arena every day. The
fight between the ANC and the DA is really heating up. But where does
it leave the people? I am determined to see local governance become
what it is meant to be; all about you. It is not about dog fights. It
is about your municipality, your schools, your roads, your houses,
your jobs, your struggle and your safety. The IFP's candidates know
that it is about you.

I am pleased to be here to introduce our candidates and support them
as they ask for your vote. I thank Mr Ricardo Sedres, our programme
director, for standing as a candidate in these elections, because I
know that serving the community as a local councilor is not about the
glory, and it is definitely not about the money. The IFP does not
tolerate slackers; no one who works on an IFP ticket gets a free ride.
We expect our councilors to work hard, and we hold them accountable
for their performance.

The IFP is not afraid to fire councilors who are not delivering on the
mandate of the IFP. We don't believe in giving jobs as favours or as
payback for allegiance. We believe in choosing the right people for
the job, to ensure that the job gets done. Our candidates have all
taken a pledge of integrity and responsiveness to the community. I
intend to hold them accountable for fulfilling that pledge.

In terms of their pledge, you can expect your IFP councilor to be a
person of integrity, to be open with you, to be fair and include you
in decision-making, to be accountable to you and available at all
times. Our councilors take your concerns seriously. We will treat you
with dignity and respect, because we are working for you and with you.

We believe in bringing municipal governance closer to you. We will
empower you to participate in decisions that are made, by closely
linking your councilors to you in their daily work. We will never
dictate to you. We live and work alongside you, tackling the real
problems together.

The IFP believes you have the right to receive any information you
require about your municipality and your council. IFP led
municipalities promote openness in all they do. We believe that
tenders should be public so that you know precisely who gets how much
for what service. The IFP believes that every Rand must be spent in a
way that improves your community and your municipality. We are intent
on stopping waste, mismanagement and corruption, while prioritising
spending on infrastructure and basic services, like water and
electricity.

These are the priorities of the IFP. We believe that local governance
matters because it is here that services are delivered and it is here
that you interact with your government as the first point of contact.
Governance should be done from the ground up. In this way, communities
can partner with their representatives to move the hand of government.
Although our country faces many social and economic problems, every
community is unique and should be empowered to tailor make its own
solutions to the problems at hand. Just as Mzingazi has different
problems to Chatsworth, Hanover Park has different problems to Parow.

Our candidates are Cape Townians who live in this community, work
here, go to church here and educate their children here. They
understand your struggle, because it is their struggle too. Our
candidates have some good ideas of how to assist you, including
extending the municipal rates relief programme to you, to help
rearrange your municipal debt. They are at the forefront of the fight
against drug abuse, particularly Tik, and the fight against crime and
gangsterism.

The IFP believes Hanover Park needs more visible policing and a
quicker response time from police and emergency services. This means
equipping your local police stations with the resources they need to
help you. I know that there are brave policemen and -women in this
community who are trying to protect and serve under very challenging
circumstances. I applaud you, and I thank you for caring for our people.

Indeed there are many people in Hanover Park that are trying to make a
difference every day, by keeping children off the streets, by
reporting drug dealers, by supporting rehabilitation programmes, by
housing family in need, by using a paycheck to provide for neighbours,
and by praying constantly for protection and upliftment in Hanover Park.

The IFP wants to partner with these people. We want to partner with
you in a revolution of goodwill that can change this community. But we
need your support to do it. We need your vote on the 18th of May. We
need you to strengthen the voice of the IFP in your local council. The
IFP is the alternative to the political dogfight that is seeing your
needs left behind. So next Wednesday I ask you to vote IFP.

I thank you.