The 1st of November is an incredibly important date for every South African concerned about the future of our country and worried about what this future may hold for our children.
It is the one day every few years where you, the citizen, get to flex your power. If you think our ship is heading in the wrong direction, it is your chance to put your hands on the wheel.
National elections may get most of the attention, but it is at local government level where the foundations for a prosperous future are built.
If we want to get our country to work, we need to get our towns and cities to work. Because you cannot build a functional economy on dysfunctional municipalities.
As a nation, our number one priority must be to get South Africans into jobs. The solutions to almost every other problem in our society will flow from this.
Well over 40% of adult South Africans don’t have work. Three-quarters of them have not worked in more than a year, and almost a third have never had a job. That is our crisis.
The only thing that can lift millions of South Africans out of crippling poverty is the kind of economic activity that brings millions of jobs. And this kind of activity doesn’t just happen. It follows good governance.
Investors and entrepreneurs make rational decisions. They take their business where they see opportunities and where they know their investment will be safe.
This means they want the same things from a local government as all citizens do.
Dependable electricity, clean water, reliable refuse removal, protection from criminals, well-maintained roads, bylaw enforcement, and knowing that public money is safely kept and responsibly spent – these things are all critical for communities, investors, and entrepreneurs alike.
Luckily, these criteria can be measured and compared.
Whether it’s the jobs numbers released by Stats SA, or the number of clean audits issued by the Auditor-General, or the municipal rankings by Ratings Afrika, or the results of the Citizen Satisfaction Index, or the value of new investments per metro, the best performer can always be objectively identified. And that best performer, on every single measure, is the Democratic Alliance.
Now, just like investors, ordinary citizens are also rational decision makers, and thousands already vote with their feet every month in search of a better life.
They go where they know they will have better access to good education, quality healthcare and jobs. They go in search of the DA difference.
It is now time to take that vote to the ballot paper so that we can bring the DA difference to even more towns and cities.
I believe we can turn them into places where all arrive in search of opportunities, rather than places people leave in search of opportunities elsewhere.
I am proud to lead the DA in this election campaign. I am proud that our party runs the best municipal, metro, and
provincial governments in the country, and that we can honestly put forward this track record as proof of our offer. No other party in the country can do this.
Only the DA has a record of action, and a promise of more.
John Steenhuizen
Leader of the DA
kougademocrat 
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