The African National Congress-led Western Cape government is blocking service delivery in Democratic Alliance-run Cape Town, DA leader Helen Zille said on Thursday.
"The ANC in this province would rather have poor people continue to suffer than allow the DA to deliver optimally to them," she said at a Cape Town Press Club lunch.
The DA in Cape Town — where Zille serves as mayor — had taken things as far as they could on their own in terms of infrastructure development, and sorting out finances and resources.
"To take things to the next level, we have to establish co-operative governance with the province... [this is] absolutely essential," Zille said.
But while the city enjoyed good co-operation with several national government departments, there were "big problems" with the province.
Zille offered housing as an example, saying the provinces had still not granted the City of Cape Town housing accreditation, which would transfer authority to approve housing projects and subsidies to the city.
She said that with full accreditation, Cape Town would be able to approve housing projects in two to three months, instead of the 18 months to two years it now took the provincial housing department.
"The first thing... we will do when we take over this province is to grant the city housing accreditation so it can get on with the job properly," she said to applause.
Numerous hurdles to face
On transportation and taxis, Zille blamed the province for what she described as "chaos" in the regulatory system.
On land for development, she said the provincial government held 434 hectares of land, suitable for housing, in the city's eastern metropole.
The city wanted to build between 30 000 and 40 000 houses on this land.
However, the province has started selling off that land to private developers, at "bargain basement" prices.
Zille said it was reasons such as these that made it essential her party won the Western Cape in the coming elections.
She repeated there was now a "possibility", following the DA's good showing in recent local by-elections, that the party could take the province outright, with more than 50 percent of the vote.
"One of the key things we will do in the province is open up the system and let the sunshine in," she vowed.
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