President Cyril Ramaphosa has hailed the sixth District Development Model (DDM) Presidential Imbizo as a success.
The Imbizo – which sought to bring together leaders of all spheres of government and communities – was held at the Drakenstein Municipality in the Western Cape.
“Whenever we hold these Imbizos we do allow 30 to 35 people to speak and that gives me a sense of what is happening in the area where we are at. But [it] also gives us an opportunity to listen. We are a listening government and today, we listened carefully.
“This for me has been a most meaningful day to be here in the Western Cape, to be here in this district. To have our Imbizo,” he said on Friday.
During the day, communities from all parts of the Cape Winelands joined the President and several Ministers to discuss the challenges these communities face.
At least 30 community members had their say – raising issues related to employment, housing, crime, education and gender-based violence.
The President honed into the challenges raised around crime and gangsterism in the province and also assured community members that these issues will be addressed in a meaningful manner.
“We also heard about crime…a lot is being done to deal with criminality and to deal with gangsters.
“Fighting criminality really is at the local level where we want all stakeholders…to work together to fight the criminals and the gangsters in our ranks. I remain confident that we will turn the tide of criminality around and we will start seeing lower levels including on gender-based violence.
“Many of the questions you have raised, in fact all of them, will be addressed. They’ve all been written down. At provincial level and at national level, all of the questions have been written down, they will be addressed,” he said.
Turning his attention to load shedding, President Ramaphosa said government determined to eliminate it.
“This is a challenge that we are looking at, we are addressing it. At a national level, this is the key priority we are facing and addressing as the government. This priority is top of our agenda and it is for that reason that I appointed a Minister of Electricity.
“I remain confident that within the next few months and yes, within the year, we will have brought load shedding down quite significantly and we will finally eliminate load shedding in South Africa within the programmes that we are putting in place,” he said. – SAnews.gov.za
