Please click here for a soundbite by DA Team One South Africa Spokesperson on Jobs, Geordin Hill-Lewis.
Today, the Democratic Alliance heard first hand from businesses in the iLembe District area, which includes the much talked about DTI-funded Isithebe Industrial Park, how their industries are being crippled due to continued ANC factional protests. The DA believes these protests are in fact ANC factional battles playing out ahead of the election.
Just in Isithebe, it is believed that these ‘protests’ are costing businesses in the area of R100 million per day. There is no doubt that these protests will cause job loses for the 21 000 people employed in the industrial park.
The DA heard that companies are looking at moving their operations in order to protect their businesses and staff from continued violence and vandalism, while the police and the local ANC councilare doing very little to quell the unrest.
The truth of the matter is that the ANC’s internal problems have now become business’s problems. Why must hard working South Africans pay for the ANC squabbling for access to patronage and power?
The DA therefore calls on the ANC Provincial Chairperson and MEC for Economic Development, Sihle Zikalala to once and for all put an end to this chaos and to stop using businesses as a pawn for their factional battles in KZN.
The DA is the only party that has a plan to create open access to jobs and Build One South Africa for All.