We know that unemployment is our city and our country’s biggest problem. Up to 40% of Tshwane residents are unemployed. No municipality can just sit back and say that it is the provincial or national government’s job to encourage job-creation.
The role of the municipality is to do everything in its power to create a space for job-creating economic growth. If businesses invest in our city, and build their offices and factories here, it creates jobs. If entrepreneurs start up or expand businesses in our city, it creates jobs. The municipality simply does not have the ability to directly employ all unemployed residents. Only businesses can create enough jobs for people. The role of the municipality is to make it easy and affordable for businesses to invest here.
All of the DA’s policies contribute to creating jobs and reducing poverty. On Tuesday the DA in Pretoria-Tshwane will announce its full plan for job-creating economic growth for the Metro, but here are a few ideas to begin with.
Firstly we have to get the basics of good government right. We have to clean-out all forms of corruption in the municipality. Corruption chases investment away and makes it difficult for entrepreneurs to get their business going. Corruption makes people poorer.
Secondly, we have to make sure that the municipality is effective and efficient. Businesses won’t invest or grow in a city where the municipality does not have skilled officials, where you have to pay bribes to get things done and where it takes years to have plans and developments approved by the municipality.
Thirdly, we have to make sure the municipality builds and maintains infrastructure. Businesses won’t invest or grow in a city that does not have roads, where public transport is not accessible or affordable and where electricity is cut off. Infrastructure projects in itself also creates jobs, albeit temporary jobs in many cases.
Fourthly, we have to make sure we enable people with good ideas to make their own money. Entrepreneurs won’t develop in communities where there is no knowledge about how to start a business, how to obtain credit and how to do business with the municipality.
The DA has a plan to tackle all of these challenges and to create that wonderful space which draws and grows business and will enable people to get jobs. Our track record in government has proven our ability to create jobs through economic growth.
In Midvaal, where the DA governs, unemployment is 24% not 40%, because we know how to get the basics of government right to attract investment by business.
In Midvaal, companies like Heineken and Ferrero Rocher built their factories and created jobs, because the municipality creates the right conditions for business to flourish.
The DA is the party for jobs. The DA is the party for people who don’t have jobs yet, but who have hope for getting those jobs. We are the party of young people, and older people, who have good ideas and want the municipality to give them a hand to develop those good ideas into businesses. A vote for the DA on 18 May is a vote against poverty and for jobs in the Tshwane Metro.
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