Thank you, Mr. President,   

I want to start off by expressing my sincere gratitude for the confidence you have bestowed upon me. I accept this nomination with a clear understanding of the amount of work that lies before us. Leading ActionSA into its first Gauteng provincial election is an honour and a challenge that I intend to acquit with distinction. 

The reality is that our province has, over the years, drifted from its historic roots of bustling economic activity, a province characterised by a melting pot of culture and a place where people come to pursue economic opportunities. 

What was once an industrial hub in the province has rapidly declined over time, under the neglectful and corrupt eye of the current government. Rather, our economic growth has regressed which, in turn, has caused our industries to shrink and the unemployment rate to rise to dangerous heights. We have witnessed businesses shutting down, new investments drying up, and millions forced to languish in poverty.  

This upcoming election offers us a real chance to unseat the current ruling government and to chart a new path of prosperity for our great province. I want you to understand that every vote you cast affects our prospects for a better future for this province. 

We, therefore, call on the people of Gauteng to give us the mandate to govern and execute our policies our own way. This is not to say that we would not accept the outcomes of a coalition government, as we are a part of a multi-party charter, but our main intention is to govern on our own and lead the province out of the depressing trenches it has found itself in. 

ActionSA is unapologetic about the need for the ANC’s rule to come to an immediate end and be removed on May 29th. As the economic pulse of South Africa and a gateway to the broader African economy, we, as the people of this vibrant and resourceful province, should act as one to arrest the decline before it swallows us whole.   

Over the past couple of months, I have travelled across this province, assessing the extent of the damage and sounding an alarm on the failures of the current government. Having seen all the decay, I refuse to sit idly by as circumstances continue to deteriorate. I maintain and strongly believe that Gauteng can be fixed, and we have devised a plan to do just that.    

This is a province that I have spent most of my working life in; it’s a province I love, but for too many residents of Gauteng, the quality of our lives has suffered severely. That’s why I am inviting you to consider our strategy for reigniting our economy. 

I introduce to you our infrastructure roadmap, a carefully thought-out strategy to ignite economic growth. This programme touches on four crucial areas: economic development and spatial planning; transport; roads and logistics; human settlements; and water and sanitation. 

Firstly, economic development and spatial planning: 

To arrest the decline, an ActionSA-led provincial government will take back control of our deserted economic infrastructure. Our regions are riddled with old, dilapidated, and hijacked properties. 

In my first 100 days, I will commission a province-wide audit of all abandoned properties, including old factories and dilapidated residential buildings. These properties carry enormous economic potential. 

Our government will work with the private sector to restore these properties to a productive state. Reclaiming these properties and offering them to the private sector would trigger new investments, mainly in manufacturing and real estate, thus resulting in the large-scale creation of jobs. 

This would mean building businesses from the bottom up by rebuilding the foundational infrastructure that drives economic activity and restoring confidence that our government will drive job creation by effectively utilising and maintaining strategic assets. 

A second 100-day priority is to fix all the provincially controlled traffic lights, road markings, and signs, ensuring they work while enhancing the monitoring and evaluation system to track those that malfunction. We must lead by example and improve service delivery within areas of provincial competence. 

Transport, roads, and logistics are the arteries through which to achieve an integrated and thriving economy. To achieve this, we believe that the long-term economic revival of the provincial economy should be underpinned by an ambitious expansion of our provincial road network. This would be a government-led programme with the objective of unlocking key economic levers such as logistics, which is labour-intensive and thus holds the potential for large-scale job creation. 

We believe that with our expansion of the provincial road network, we can also better determine human settlements and how and where they are built. This effectively allows for new housing projects to be better placed in proximity to transportation nodes while also contributing to the reduction of transportation costs for our residents. This is how a caring government intervenes by putting more money in our residents' pockets, considering that people are situated far from places of employment. 

Furthermore, in addition to the priority sectors mentioned above, the Infrastructure Roadmap also places emphasis on the need for upgrading the water and sanitation infrastructure of municipalities across our province. My administration will prioritise the strengthening of our cooperative governance model to ensure that the provincial government effectively plays its oversight role over our municipalities, impartially, while also assisting in sourcing investment into the new and resilient water and sanitation infrastructure of the future. 

Our cross-sectoral infrastructure programme will allow us to make targeted interventions with meaningful outcomes. This holds true, especially where law and order are concerned. We believe that we must play a proactive role in crime prevention from a socio-economic perspective, and that if we create enough economic opportunities, we can disincentivize the need for our residents to turn to crime. 

We shall turn this province into a construction site with wealth distribution opportunities abounding for everyone, with a particular focus on empowering women, youth, and persons living with disabilities. 

Fellow residents, 

For our programme of action to triumph and set us on course towards a path of prosperity, it must be stated that the provincial bureaucracy needs to be one that is highly skilled, fit for purpose, motivated, and fully aware of the monumental task that awaits us. An ActionSA government in Gauteng will ensure that infrastructure programmes are completed on time, there is value for money spent, and there is maximum transparency in contracts awarded. 

It is our objective to strengthen consequence mechanism processes as we shall entrench zero tolerance for corruption. It is important that we inculcate and cultivate this culture, which will assist us in installing a professionalised provincial civil service. 

Law and order is another key priority of ours in our efforts to reclaim the province. We believe that current efforts to combat crime have not yielded the desired results. Recently, the SAPS Quarterly Crime Statistics revealed that Gauteng has become the murder capital of South Africa, with 1,787 murders recorded in the third quarter of 2023. Under our administration, we shall implement new and realign existing measures to achieve the maximum desired efficacy in combating crime in Gauteng. 

Chief amongst these is the dismantling of the Crime Prevention Wardens, Premier Lesufi’s private militia, and placing the structure under the various municipalities across our province. Our intention is to strengthen municipal law enforcement, as policing is not a provincial competence, thus resulting in a grassroots approach to policing within our province. 

This is consistent with ActionSA’s Law and Order policy, which advocates for the devolution of policing functions. For this to succeed, we will also endeavour to strengthen our relationship with the South African Police Service to ensure they are sufficiently capacitated to execute their duties. 

We must work together to realise this deferred dream. Our solutions blueprint is reliant on a strong cooperative framework, one that prioritises the bringing together of various stakeholders. We can only succeed when we all work together towards this common vision, where we take ownership of our destiny and safeguard it against all who seek to derail us. 

We believe that the people of Gauteng should buy into this vision and utilise their power to make it a reality. It is only through action that we can fix our brilliant province, leading it to an upward trajectory! 

This, however, can only be achieved through our collective efforts and taking to the polls on May 29. 

The province deserves an ethical and progressive government that is focused on serving the needs of the people rather than their own. We are fed up with leaders who have forgotten that they are for the people, by their people. 

The only path to great success is through a progressive ActionSA-led government. 

I would like to express my most profound gratitude to the President and the broader ActionSA family for entrusting me with this responsibility. 

Let's fix Gauteng! And let us fix South Africa! 

Because only action can fix Gauteng.

And only action can fix South Africa.

I thank you.