House Chairperson, there can be little doubt that government is simply failing to protect its citizen's lives and their property. South Africa is widely recognised as one of the most violent nations in the world. The recently published crime statistics paint
a picture of a society that has been captured by violent criminals without any hope that the future will be any better. Presidential platitudes to reduce violent crime by half in the next 10 years have not been met with clear and tangible plans as to how this will in fact be achieved. Violent crime is on the rise in South Africa and citizens have lost confidence in government's ability to protect them.
If we want to turn the tide on violent crime, we need to tackle it at its source and we need to rip it up by its roots. The real departure point to tackle violent crime is in fact with the very people who lead us. It is about changing the culture of criminality which has infected government from presidents to mayors. It is a culture which has seen the capture of the state by the Guptas and rampant corruption without consequence at every level of government. It is a culture bequeathed upon our nation by the ANC which has become so fundamentally compromised by corruption and criminality that it cannot move anything forward, let alone the country.
When there is no accountability in a system of government in which blatant corruption and criminality at the hands of politicians and civil servants goes unpunished, there will be an erosion of accountability throughout society. It is in this environment that violent crime will continue to thrive. The ANC is the head of the rotting fish and they have allowed the rot to spread too far to be able to stop it. How can the ANC government build a law-abiding society when mayors and presidents believe that they are above the law? Hon members, section 9(1) of our Constitution states that everyone is equal before the law and has the right to equal protection and benefit of the law. The problem is that nobody believes this to be true because in South Africa we know that the ANC politicians and cronies are more equal than the rest of us.
One of the best examples of the complete failure of accountability leading to violent crime is in Nelson Mandela Bay, a city named after the most revered statesman in the world, which has now become a gangster state in which government by fear and retribution are the order of the day. Between 2016 and 2018 the DA-led
coalition brought stability and peace to Nelson Mandela Bay. We introduced a culture of accountability. We cancelled over R600 million in corrupt contracts, fired corrupt officials and started to turn the ship around. In just one year the ANC's coalition of corruption and their puppet mayor, Mongameli Bobani, assumed office service delivery has ground to a halt, finances are a mess, the National Treasury is recalling its grants and the council has all but collapsed.
In December 2018 Mayor Bobani's coalition of corruption awarded a drain cleaning tender worth R21 million to a number of small, medium, and micro enterprises, SMMEs, in what has become known as the Great Drain Heist. Since the award of that tender more than 18 people have been killed in what police have described as hits which bear all the hallmarks of politically motivated killings. Many of these people can be linked directly and indirectly to the great drain heist and the coalition of corruption led by Mayor Bobani.
In a council meeting last week with another motion of no confidence against the mayor looming, the Speaker of the
council and deputy mayor received death threats and the speaker's neighbour's house was riddled with bullets in an ominous threat to prevent the motion of no confidence from proceeding. No arrests, no prosecutions and no accountability!
Things have become so bad in Nelson Mandela Bay that even a team from the Auditor-General's office who were investigating the Great Drain Heist received death threats and were forced to leave the City for fear of their lives. The gangster sate in Nelson Mandela Bay is real and it is terrifying. It is led by the Pablo Escobar of local government, Mongameli Bobani, whose reign of terror is propped up by his jug-wielding convicted criminal lieutenant, Andile Lungisa, your comrade.
Good governance and accountability have been eroded so far that the rule of law has been completely subverted and the very democratic project to which we are all sworn to protect is now under threat.
In a desperate effort to rescue the people of Nelson Mandela Bay from the claws of their own corrupt cronies,
the ANC sent their central protagonist in the gangster state, Mr Ace Magashule who appears to have predictably done absolutely nothing.
It is time to dismantle the gangster state in Nelson Mandela Bay and restore good governance and accountability. It is time to lock up corrupt politicians who have committed state sanctioned violence against citizens. It is time to dissolve the Nelson Mandela Bay council and hit the reset button. It is time to remove the criminal syndicate known as the ANC from government. For as long as corrupt criminal politicians remain in government and not in jail, we will not be able to turn the tide on violent crime in South Africa. I thank you. [Applause.