DA leader Geordin Hill-Lewis has put Nelson Mandela Bay’s violent-crime crisis at the centre of its campaign, saying five of the metro’s police precincts rank among SA’s 13 worst murder hotspots.
Speaking at the DA’s Working for All tour at the Fairview Sports Centre on Monday, Hill-Lewis said Kwazakhele recorded 59 murders between January and March — the highest number of any police precinct in the country.
“Behind every one of those numbers is a person, a family who has lost a loved one,” Hill-Lewis said.
“Local government cannot replace the police, but we can at least do something with what we have and where we are.
“In a well-lit street, it’s harder to commit crime.
“In a busy park that lots of people are using, it’s harder to illegally occupy.
“We will make sure there is a metro police force, a law-enforcement service and a traffic-enforcement service that is honest, accountable and has integrity.”
He said the DA would get the city working again.
“Because every South African knows our towns, our cities, wherever the DA is not there, those places are broken.
“Wherever we get the chance to govern, we get things working for everyone.
“That’s what we do. That’s what our party, our family, this team is all about.
“When those basics work, something important happens.
“The city starts to work. Businesses start to come back. Businesses start to invest.
“People get into jobs. They get out of poverty. The economy grows.”
He said a DA government would turn the city around.
“What makes me sad sometimes as a South African is that our country has become used to things getting worse and things going backwards.
“We in the DA stand for something totally different. Yes, our problems are difficult.
“Yes, we’ve got lots of challenges to overcome.
“But that is not an excuse for doing nothing like this current government is doing.
“It is an excuse or a reason to roll up your sleeves and get stuck in.”
DA MPL Retief Odendaal is the DA’s mayoral candidate for the city.
“And here you have a mayoral candidate who loves to roll up his sleeves and get stuck into the work,” Hill-Lewis said.
“The job of government is to work through that complexity and produce results.”
Odendaal said the party was the only one to get the city working after the November 4 local government elections.
“Democrats, over the past 18 months, we have travelled the length and breadth of this city,” he said.
“Every day, I see people suffering all over this metro because we have an incompetent, corrupt and uncaring government.
“Every day, thousands of people in this city are sitting without water or electricity.
“Every day, thousands of people in this city are sitting at home without a job because the current government is destroying our economy.”
He said basic services could be fixed if the administration was professionalised.
“That means we need to appoint competent administrators, engineers, plumbers, electricians, town planners and artisans — not based on their political connections but based on their skills.”
Odendaal said the city could use municipal money to invest in infrastructure.
“No business can invest in a city with collapsing infrastructure, after all.
“We can make the city safer again by ensuring that we have a fully-fledged metro police that works alongside the police to fight the criminals.
“This city doesn’t spend its budgets and sends money away, while we don’t invest a cent in security infrastructure that can keep communities safe — this while blood is flowing in the streets of our city,” he said.
“Only the DA can get the city working again.
“That is why we want to win this city, not just because we want to be in government like other parties, but because we want to transform Nelson Mandela Bay into a city that holds a future for all of us.”
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