GAUTENG — The Democratic Alliance (DA) has placed municipal service delivery at the centre of its election campaign, pledging more reliable water and electricity supply and better-maintained roads as it briefed the media in Mamelodi ahead of its final election rally tomorrow.
DA Federal Chairperson Solly Msimanga told reporters that functional municipalities are essential to attracting investment, creating much-needed jobs and resolving the basic service delivery failures confronting communities.
“People are tired of being part of experiments”
Msimanga argued that voters have run out of patience with political promises and want a government that simply works.
Residents, he said, are “tired of being part of experiments” and are ready for a change in how their towns and townships are run.
He said the party intended to move quickly after Wednesday’s vote, putting both people and systems in place to get infrastructure projects moving again.
Water from the tap, not from tankers
Among the DA’s central commitments, Msimanga said, is restoring a basic expectation: that water flows when a tap is opened.
He linked the failure of piped water supply to what he described as “water tanker mafias”, accusing those profiting from emergency water deliveries of deliberately allowing infrastructure to deteriorate in order to keep enriching themselves.
The party also wants to introduce a more dependable electricity supply in municipalities, he said.
Potholes, tarred streets and sewage in the road
Road maintenance featured prominently in the DA’s message from Mamelodi. Msimanga said the party wants to eradicate potholes and return streets to the tarred condition they were originally built to be in.
He also raised the indignity of raw sewage flowing in residential streets, saying it had become a permanent feature in one of the communities he cited, and that families should not be forced to live in those conditions.
Fixing these failures, he said, is where the DA intends to focus.
Service delivery as an investment signal
Beyond the immediate repairs, Msimanga framed working municipalities as an economic signal to investors both at home and abroad.
Demonstrating that the DA can take over and run municipalities properly, he argued, would naturally draw investors to those towns and cities.
That investment, he said, is how the party plans to create the thousands of desperately needed jobs that would move municipalities, ultimately provinces, and the country forward.
Final rally next
The Mamelodi media briefing forms part of the DA’s closing stretch of campaigning, with the party’s final election rally set to take place tomorrow, ahead of the vote Msimanga referred to as Wednesday.
The party’s pitch rests on a straightforward argument: that reliable water, steady electricity, passable roads and clean streets are not luxuries, but the foundation on which investment and employment are built.
