South Africa

Alan Winde calls on Western Cape to ‘stand for what is right’ in shifting global order

Serjeant-at-Arms Wayne Naidoo, Secretary to the Provincial Parliament Romeo Adams, Premier Alan Winde, Speaker Daylin Mitchell and Director: Parliamentary Support Services Lubabalo Stemele on the verge of proceeding to the NG Church Hall for the State of the Province Address. (Photo: Western Cape Provincial Parliament)

By Suné Payne

26 Feb 2025

Western Cape Premier Alan Winde says the message this year is to ‘step up’ as the province grapples with not only provincial, but global issues.

‘We are in uncertain times,” said Western Cape Premier Alan Winde twice on Wednesday evening, as he spoke not only of local issues such as a Budget deadlock, but of the global order.

Winde was speaking at the opening of the provincial legislature on 26 February during his 2025 State of the Province Address (Sopa).

“We have to step up more than ever before,” said Winde, calling on leaders and residents to meet present challenges.

“As I make this speech, we are in very uncertain times – no clarity on our Budget…” he said, referring to the postponement of the national Budget over the contested VAT increase from 15% to 17%.

Read more: Government planned to spend VAT on civil servant pay hikes, Grade R

Touching on global affairs, with a nod to the impact of Donald Trump’s US presidency, Winde said: “ International markets are in distress and elections are resulting in massive policy shifts across the world. Aid is being cut and free trade is being replaced by trade barriers and tariffs.”

Serjeant-at-Arms Wayne Naidoo, Secretary to the Provincial Parliament Romeo Adams, Premier Alan Winde, Speaker Daylin Mitchell and Director: Parliamentary Support Services Lubabalo Stemele preparing to enter the NG Church Hall for the State of the Province Address. (Photo: Western Cape Provincial Parliament)

The premier said while he thought about the negatives, there were also opportunities, such as the G20 and associated business meeting, the B20, being hosted in South Africa.

He noted how he had been “sitting in those B20 meetings, understanding that the world is in turmoil and talking about how business is going to find its way in this new, uncertain environment”.

Winde said the province would stand “against the attempts to reshape the world in a paradigm of might is right… It seems that the very foundations of democracy are at risk, and we must make sure that we stand for what is right.”

Winde’s speech took place at the NG Church Hall in Beaufort West. In 2024, the DA, the governing party in the province, gained control of Beaufort West’s hung council after the party won three hotly contested by-elections.

Read more: Opposition parties call for Alan Winde to take action on education crisis and crime epidemic

Winde highlighted projects under way, including infrastructure builds and efforts to promote energy security. He also praised the Western Cape’s unemployment rate of 19.6%, the lowest in the country.

Port of Cape Town

As Daily Maverick reported in June 2024, the Port of Cape Town came last – 405th – in a ranking of ports across the world based on vessel time in port.

Winde said a “critical part” of the Presidency’s Operation Vulindlela had to be to “dramatically improve” the performance of the port and develop other ports such as Saldanha and Mossel Bay.

“We are facilitating the establishment of a task team comprising multiple stakeholders, among them Wesgro and Transnet National Ports Authority, to develop solutions to operational challenges in and around the Port of Cape Town,” said Winde.

He confirmed the province was meeting Transport Minister Barbara Creecey to help get the port on track, but also called for private-sector collaboration.

Reflections on his first term

This is Winde’s second and final term as Western Cape premier. Addressing his first term, between 2019 and 2024, he said: “Speaker, as I stand here today, I first reflect on the last term and thinking about that last term, it was a term of difficulties, it was a term of crisis”.

This was in reference to the Covid-19 pandemic and other natural disasters that forced the world to think and adapt, and issues around budget cuts.

“It was a term that we had to step up, deal with things as we went through… I think of water shortages and droughts. I think of the pandemic, I think of floods and reactions to floods. I think of financially difficult times in the last term.”

He said that while the Government of National Unity (GNU) was beginning to address some of the challenges inherited from previous administrations, those challenges remained, and the next few years would be difficult for the country.

Winde praised the province’s firefighters and said that looking back to February 2024, they had been fighting massive blazes at that time.

Read more: Taking stock — staggering scale of Western Cape wildfires as fire season continues to rage

Read more: Crucial lessons for future preparedness from the Western Cape fire season

“I think of this time last year, talking about those firefighters, those men and women that were out across our province fighting those massive blazes because we’re in February, and it hasn’t rained yet,” said Winde.

“And as I stand here today, exactly the same thing is happening.”

He said about ongoing fires in the Western Cape: “Our firefighters are out there in the city of Cape Town, in the Winelands, in Drakenstein, across our province, fighting blaze after blaze across our mountain ranges, fighting fires [to] make sure it doesn’t affect our citizens – and I want to say to them, thank you very much.”

“But thinking back at that time, we adapted, we innovated, and we responded to the matters at hand.”

Budgets – provincial and personal

Touching on budgets, Winde said: “While government funding is being squeezed, our residents are also struggling to make ends meet… We are all feeling the squeeze of escalating food, electricity and fuel prices.”

Provincial budget cuts had forced a shortfall in frontline services, particularly in education. As Daily Maverick has reported, there have been protests over the cutting of 2,400 teacher posts.

The Western Cape has faced a R3.8-billion budget shortfall partly because it received only 64% of the nationally negotiated wage agreement for public workers from the national government.

“Ongoing budget cuts – driven by a growing national fiscal crisis – have left us with far less funding than we need to maintain our recognised high standard of service delivery and to support our most vulnerable residents,” said Winde.

While the province is facing cuts, as in other provinces, it is also facing influxes of new residents and a growing population. This, Winde said, was placing “greater pressure than ever on our frontline services”.

“The cuts to our Equitable Share and Conditional Grants are brutal,” he said.

“The coming years will be tough as we work to rebuild our economy. Yet, even as our funding shrinks, our responsibilities grow.”

“Over the next decade, the Western Cape is expected to grow by another two million people. Of course, we welcome those who are making the Western Cape their home and are willing to contribute to our success, but we must find ways to simultaneously build our services to meet their needs,” said Winde.

“We must find alternative ways to fund the critical investments needed to secure our future. That is why our provincial treasury is exploring new funding approaches,” he said

In closing, Winde said: “In 2025, all of us must step up for ourselves and each other. Many of our officials tell me of the pressures they are under, but they often say to me, ‘We do this because we care, and we support one another.’ This reflects the dedication of our officials.”

On Thursday morning, Winde’s speech will be debated in the legislature with the premier due to respond in the afternoon. DM

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South Africa

Port of Cape Town

Reflections on his first term

Budgets – provincial and personal