National and Provincial government must work together to resolve the issues of rolling blackouts and crime despite political differences that exist. This is according to Western Cape Premier Alan Winde.
Winde was addressing thousands of residents of the Cape Winelands District who gathered for the Presidential Imbizo in Paarl in the Western Cape today.
The Imbizo is aimed at ensuring through the District Development Model that all spheres of government collaborate to ensure improved service delivery.
Winde’s utterances come as the Western Cape continues to push for the devolution of national powers and responsibilities such as policing and rail transportation to the provincial level.
“We want to partner with you Mr President, we want to partner with you and your Minister of Energy, Electricity that we do everything in our power to end load shedding as quickly as possible. I want to say our second big focus for our region that we have always engaged in is crime and again we need to work together, we might have our differences politically but in crime, we cannot. We must stand together and fight crime and make it safer for the people.”
Meanwhile, Winde says over 380 000 jobs have been created in the province over the past year. He was speaking during an Imbizo hosted by President Cyril Ramaphosa at Paarl in the Boland. The president is set to engage with residents, community-based organisations, and businesses during the Imbizo at the Dal Josaphat Stadium. Winde has called on Ramaphosa to create jobs and bring an end to the energy crisis.
“Out of those jobs that are added to the economy in this very region this region percentagewise is worth more in jobs. This is 10% of the Western Cape economy, 50% of the jobs created were the jobs from our province so it makes much more jobs than any other region in our province.”
