Premier's address at the National Dialogue on Coalition Governments

Note to editors: this is a summary of Premier Alan Winde’s address at the National Dialogue on Coalition Governments, being held over two days, 4 and 5 August 2023, at the University of the Western Cape in Cape Town.

In welcoming you all here today I have a few words I want to leave with each and every one of you: responsibility and urgency.

This platform reminds me of those leaders who produced this document, the Constitution. We are gathered here today in a dialogue and our responsibility is to make sure that this dialogue is remembered in 30 years’ time.

As we remember the start of democracy, 30 years ago, and the creation of our great constitution; the responsibility rests on each and every one of us as we gather here on behalf of every single South African who is looking at all of us saying: ‘we need you to bring about the critical changes that are needed to take us back to that day that our Rainbow Nation was born.’

I thought I would start off by reading the preamble of this great document, our Constitution, to set the scene for us as we deliberate over the next two days:

“We the people of South Africa recognise the injustices of our past;

Honour those who suffered for justice and freedom in our land;

Respect those who have worked to build and develop our country; and

Believe that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, united in our diversity.

We therefore, through our freely elected representatives, adopt this Constitution as the supreme law of the Republic so as to –

Heal the divisions of the past and establish a society based on democratic values, social justice and fundamental human rights;

Lay the foundations for a democratic and open society in which government is based on the will of the people and every citizen is equally protected by law;

Improve the quality of life of all citizens and free the potential of each person; and

Build a united and democratic South Africa able to take its rightful place as a sovereign state in the family of nations. May God protect our people. Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika.”

This document is what we need to base our deliberations on; the dreams of those South Africans when our Rainbow Nation was born.

As our religious leaders stood here today, I thought about what they were saying about the pain that so many of our citizens feel on a daily basis, about how many people in our country have not felt the change or seen any difference. We owe it to every single one of them to take that responsibility that each of us has been given, to use that responsibility to make sure that this discussion is not just a dialogue, that it turns into action, urgent action.

I serve the citizens and residents of this province and I know that so often they come off second best when in the political sphere, we play musical chairs. We find politicians who are thinking about office space, cars, and support staff, instead of those very citizens they were elected to serve.

I can see it in the audit outcomes. I can see it in the way funding is spent through budgets. I can see it in the way that governments are supposed to deliver but do not. And I can see it in the reports that we work with every day where we try to measure the difference in service delivery to our residents. And especially in those places where politics is played, musical chairs are the talk and action of the day and the citizens are left behind, things get worse, and they do not get better. That is why this platform is so very important.

We will refer to minimum thresholds and frameworks. We must ensure that we do not end up saying, “Let us make sure that I am recognised as a person here in the position that I hold; as opposed to why I am here on behalf of the citizens. So, that when we form those minimum thresholds they are not on behalf of our political parties, but on behalf of the citizens of our country.

When we form those thresholds and frameworks and mechanisms that will guide us - just as the Constitution guides us – we must do this with the citizen in mind.

It is not only about politics; it also has to be about the administration. We cannot have political musical chairs played in the political realm of governance! We have to talk about how we create stability and professionalism in an administration process. At the same time, it is not about the Municipal Managers, the Director Generals, and the Heads of Departments who are also being shuffled around. When all sides are playing that game the citizens suffer, and service delivery suffers.

This dialogue must turn into a concrete framework, a concrete set of rules that we must urgently put in place to make sure that the next 30 years of governments in South Africa give the citizens the services, dignity, aspirations, and the environment that they deserve. We have that responsibility and opportunity here, and we must do it with the “fierce urgency of now”.