Know all the potholes on your route home? Adjusting to a ‘collapsing’ Joburg ‘is not normal’, says Zille

DA mayoral candidate Helen Zille believes that Johannesburg residents have forgotten what it feels like to live in a functional municipality.

Speaking in Orange Grove on Wednesday, Zille says Johannesburg residents are so resilient that they tolerate what should not be tolerated: poor service delivery.

“I did not know that there is a point where you become too resilient, but when things start collapsing, they do not complain for months. They actually adjust and get used to it, and it becomes the new normal.

“I need to tell them this is not normal. You have forgotten what normal looks like. Our pledge to you in this election is to bring you back to a new normal that is better than what you now take for granted. That is our promise in this election,” she said.

Zille said she is passionate about Joburg because it is her hometown.

“So that gives me an extra and very deep personal motivation to stop the rot in Joburg,” she said.

Joburg’s pride

Zille said when service delivery collapses, and municipal officials appear detached from the community, it destroys the pride of residents.

“People are not proud of where they live, they no longer love where they live, and the first point of being devoted to a city is being proud of it, to love it, and there is nothing essentially not to love about Joburg,” she said.

A party for all South Africans?

Meanwhile, DA leader Geordin Hill-Lewis told party supporters at the same event that he is pleased that the DA’s campaign for the local government elections is on track.

“We have been going about our campaign running a positive campaign, getting out there around the country, but it is getting increasingly interesting and odd to me to see how everyone else seems to have given up.

“There is just no one else campaigning…I do not know if the ANC have thrown in the towel in this city. I hope they have,” he said.

Hill-Lewis said the DA is a party for all South Africans and was not formed to serve a particular group.

“Every other party on the ballot paper almost explicitly says they are only interested in serving a specific part of society. We are interested in making Joburg, making every town and city work for everyone.

“We want everyone to benefit from DA government to see the difference the DA makes in government, the clean government, the ethics, the integrity, the respect for public funds, the investment in public infrastructure, the commitment to professionalism and merit in the appointment of public officials,” he said.

DA federal chairperson, Solly Msimanga, at the same event, told party supporters that working towns and cities bring dignity to their residents.

“My understanding is that if you have local government that fails, you can not have a national government that works,” he said.