DA's Steenhuisen supports redress 'but not at the expense of the economy'

DA leader John Steenhuisen has reaffirmed his party's stance on redress, saying it should not be implemented by compromising the present and sacrificing the future.

The DA has been at loggerheads with President Cyril Ramaphosa over some of the bills that have been signed into law since the GNU was formed.

These laws have pitted the DA and the ANC — biggest members of the government of national unity — against each other.

The latest was the expropriation act and Ramaphosa has also pushed through the basic education laws amendment act (Bela Act) and the national health insurance act to the dismay of his GNU partners, especially the DA.

During his Sona debate speech, Steenhuisen said the government should keep in mind the economy and people’s livelihoods when dealing with redress.

“We must remember that South Africa cannot succeed unless everyone in it succeeds. And I mean everyone. No exceptions,” said Steenhuisen.

“That means we must redress the wrongs of the past but do so in ways that grow the economy and bring down unemployment. It makes no sense, for example, that 30 years of transformation has occurred alongside a 50% increase in unemployment. We cannot redress the past by compromising the present and sacrificing the future.”

He said this meant there must be respect for cultural and language rights, which exist because South Africa is a diverse and historically divided country.

Steenhuisen said South Africans, including farmers and farmworkers, must feel safe.

He said the country had achieved a lot since the formation of the GNU, singling out the successes and focuses of DA ministers.

Steenhuisen said the GNU should focus on driving reforms that will drive economic growth.

He listed several programmes, including approaching trading partners to lower tariff barriers to counter looming tariff increases by the US.

He said the GNU must “make a big, bold decision to reimagine the NHI, making it the joint mission of the public and private sectors because both have a clear role to play”.

“Cut costs by implementing an immediate and fundamental spending review. Amend the expropriation act to better protect property rights,” he said. “The government must also turbocharge Operation Vulindlela, take up the World Bank’s offer of a free government-wide regulatory review, bring down costs to consumers by eliminating tariffs on things we don’t produce in South Africa, and allow equity alternatives to ownership requirements in every sector.

“Bring back specialised police units and devolve policing powers to cities, like Cape Town, which have the organisational capacity to fight crime more effectively and move quickly to professionalise the public service, as the president promised on Thursday,” he said.

Steenhuisen reiterated that the DA agreed to join the GNU to stop the EFF and MK Party from getting power and to turn around the country’s economy.

“The truth is we have persisted for too long with policies that fail ... state monopolies that have been bailed out over and over again, allowing the foundations of our economy to crumble. Excessive regulation that makes it harder for businesses to grow and employ people. Empowerment policies that benefit the few, not the many,” said Steenhuisen.

“A tariff regime that pushes up prices with no benefit, even to the companies those tariffs are meant to protect. A foreign policy that puts ideological solidarity ahead of the life chances of desperate South Africans.”

He said the country now had to unite to navigate against the threat that led to it being weakened by those policies.

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