GOOD Speech by Roscoe Palm
GOOD City of Cape Town Councillor
25 August 2025
Note to Editor: Today, the GOOD Party stood in solidarity with disabled Capetonians protesting the Democratic Alliance’s decision to cut Dial-A-Ride services, effective from 8 September 2025. The following speech was delivered by Roscoe Palm.
The City of Cape Town says it is a City of Hope.
I am hopeful today, not because of what the City is doing, but because gathered here are people who cannot walk, yet they are standing tall against injustice. People who cannot see, yet they have more vision than the MMC for Urban Mobility, Rob Quintas.
Some say we must keep politics out of this. But cutting a budget is a political decision. Denying people their right to dignity is political. Even if you don’t support a political party, you are in a political struggle today – because this decision to cut Dial-A-Ride was made by politicians.
I challenge Mr Quintas to take a MyCiTi bus from Atlantis to the Civic Centre blindfolded. Take a bus from your comfortable home in Hout Bay to your office and then tell us about accessibility.
Even here, at the centre of municipal governance, how many of you were able to access this space safely? How many of you could reach the place where your voices are supposed to be heard?
The City says one of its core values is Accessibility. If that is true, then it must act on that value. It must restore the services it has already begun to cut. And it must expand those services so that more disabled Capetonians can travel with dignity, freedom, and independence.
The GOOD Party stands with you in this fight. Because no resident of Cape Town should be treated as an afterthought.
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