Western Cape Premier Alan Winde has outlined an ambitious vision to create a “healthy ecosystem for employment opportunities” while confronting the province’s mounting challenges with crime, policing shortages, and child malnutrition.
Speaking at the annual Tygerberg Business Chamber Gala Dinner last week, Winde delivered a sobering assessment of the obstacles facing economic growth.
The popular black-tie event was recently held at Goedgeleven outside Durbanville, and sponsored by Business Partners Limited.
“An entrepreneur is someone who finds solutions to challenges,” Winde said, a principle that lies at the heart of the province’s economic strategy.
According to Winde, the Western Cape’s primary focus is on significantly boosting economic growth and job creation by establishing the right conditions for entrepreneurs to succeed and flourish, setting clear objectives and identifying key priorities.
“We must create a healthy ecosystem for employment opportunities,” he said, summing up that people need to be physically healthy and live in a safe and secure environment in order to work.”
Crime crisis and policing shortages
He said the province is grappling with huge challenges, crime being a major problem as police resources are dwindling.
“When I became Premier in 2019, there were 200 000 police officers in the country, of which 20 000 were in the Western Cape. Today, there are 180 000 police officers in the country, and only 13 000 in the Western Cape. Interestingly enough, in 2010 we had 600 000 private security personnel in the country whereas today we have 2.7 million private security officers,” he said.
Winde highlighted that the Western Cape records 4 500 murders annually – 12 per day – with only a 5% conviction rate among arrests made, driving the province’s continued push for devolved police investigative powers to improve prosecution outcomes.
According to him there are currently 8 500 vacancies for investigators in the South African Police Service (SAPS).
“Police investigators should normally have 25 to 50 cases on their desk per year, as opposed to the 500 dockets they currently have to investigate. It is a big problem, and SAPS does not know how to handle it.”
Thus, in the Western Cape, a safety plan has been put in place over and above constitutional mandates in the form of 1 200 Law Enforcement Advancement Officers (LEAP) in the six crime hotspots in the Cape Metro.
“With peace officer status, they have the power to arrest, search, and seize. They can also confiscate illegal firearms and drugs, and compound minor offences. These officers are specifically trained and deployed in high-crime areas to support law enforcement efforts, often in partnership with the South African Police Service (SAPS). They are supported with technology such as body cams and drones with heat signatures to see where shootings take place,” said Winde.
In recent crime statistics, the LEAP programme resulted in a 4% decrease in the murder rate in areas where officers are deployed. “However, policing is not just about boots on the ground; we have to build ethics and values within communities.”
Building ethics and values
“We take youngsters who have matriculated, 4 000 every year, who will not get to college or university, and put them through training programmes in partnership with private business. They get the experience, and they work in our departments and in businesses that give them a push-start in life.”
Another project, called Planet Youth, an initiative founded in Iceland, is now being implemented in the Western Cape.
According to the Premier, Planet Youth involves a comprehensive survey among thousands of learners who are asked detailed questions about their personal circumstances. This includes inquiring about their family situations, household structures – whether they live with one parent or no parents – and any exposure to violence they may have experienced. Winde explained that this approach allows them to build a comprehensive database of information about these teenagers’ lives and backgrounds.
The data is scary, but it gives us a starting point to help those children.
Of big concern in the province is stunting. Growth stunting is a condition where a child is too short for their age, resulting from a lack of adequate nutrition over a long period, often combined with repeated infections and poor toxic-social stimulation. It leads to impaired physical growth and delayed development, which can have severe, long-lasting, and sometimes irreversible physical and cognitive consequences.
“Stunting is getting worse in the Western Cape,” said Winde. “When a child is born, and you don’t correct that underweight child for the first thousand days, if they don’t have the proper nourishment either before they are born or after they are born, that child is going to always be behind. It’s going to always be the child that doesn’t pass. It’s going to be the child that doesn’t really make it in the class, and then what happens to that child – they drop out of school and don’t make it to any kind of tertiary education.
“They end up in gangs or in crime. To counteract the problem, our Health Department is working with the private sector and Stellenbosch University. Clinics identify underweight pregnant mothers. In partnership with Shoprite, they are provided with a credit card to buy highly nutritious products from the retailer in order to gain weight before the baby is born, preventing stunting. If we can succeed in this project, we can stop kids from being pulled into a life of crime later on in life.”
Business-government partnership key
Winde noted that the northern suburbs have experienced rapid property development in recent years, transforming the area into a hub of economic activity.
“If you look at the value of residential property in this region compared to the rest of the country, you will see that in the last 15 years, property values decreased in many other metros in other parts of the country by while showing massive increase in Cape Town,” he said.
“However, for many people these property values remain unaffordable, and the government needs to help those currently outside the property market to gain housing, something that is not popular among residents.”
Winde champions the development of a second airport with a vision of making it an Emirates hub, viewing it as pivotal to regional economic growth and transforming the entire area.
It’s quite amazing what entrepreneurs are doing.
He highlighted several recent economic successes, including Tiger Brands’ expansion plans that will create 3 000 jobs in the province. Winde also celebrated partnerships with international investors like North Fund, which helped save over 4 000 jobs in the canning industry.
He visited a local e-commerce company that he said supports an impressive 16 000 small and medium enterprises across South Africa through their platform. He was particularly excited about meeting a World Economic Forum-recognised tech entrepreneur who received testing approval for drone cargo transport, capable of carrying up to 1.5 tons.
“It’s quite amazing what entrepreneurs are doing.”
Concluding his address, Winde emphasised the importance of the partnership between business and government in driving economic growth in the province.
“We have to enable, invent, and create an ecosystem so that entrepreneurs can grow their businesses,” he said. “That is how we are going to destroy unemployment. It is the only way that we are going to get it right to make sure we are the country that we can be.”
