SPEECH TO THE WESTERN CAPE PROVINCIAL PARLIAMENT BY BRETT HERRON, GOOD MEMBER AND SECRETARY GENERAL
26 March 2021
WESTERN CAPE 2021 BUDGET: BUDGETS ARE MORAL DOCUMENTS
It is said that “budget are moral documents”.
If you want to see a government’s morals, or their priorities,just look at the budget.
Budgeting involves making choices.
Our provincial government has made the choice to allocate R750 million, as part of the R1,3 billion total allocation, over the next two financial years for the employment of another 500 learner law enforcement officers. Their LEAP project.
Their choice is to create an illusion of safety and crime fighting.
It is a false illusion and a dangerous one.
It is dangerous because you are telling people, living in extremely violent conditions, that they will be safer. But they are not. The LEAP officers are not making these communities safer nor can they.
The investment in an ill-conceived, unresearched and rapidly implemented Safety Plan is disproportionate to the urgent need to address the lived conditions that give rise to gangsterism and crime.
The MEC for Education has a standard response to questions about inadequate schooling – that national government cut her budget. But the Western Cape Cabinet could have chosen to invest in schools rather than LEAP.
The Mayor of Cape Town was confronted last weekend about the Dido Valley Housing Project – and told the resident to “shut up”. That project was delayed because the Provincial Government reduced the City’s HSDG funding. The Western Cape Cabinet could have chosen to invest in more housing rather than LEAP.
While children are unable to access schools, while children are learning under trees, while families are stuck in backyards or informal settlements, homeless, for decades, and while millions of people are unemployed – this government has made the choice to invest R1, 3 billion in an illusion of policing.
It doesn’t take much to imagine the impact an investment of an additional R1,3 billion in schools, housing, infrastructure or social services, would have.
We will not eliminate rampant violent crime until we address the lived conditions of those communities.
The choice of this government to step outside its mandate and fund an inadequate form of policing instead of investing in building schools or building houses is immoral.