PRESS RELEASE: WC Devolution Working Group an Essential Response to SA’s Challenges
The Cape Independence Advocacy Group (CIAG) notes the somewhat hysterical response in some quarters to the formation of the Western Cape Devolution Working Group (WCDWG).
The devolution working group is exactly that. Our initial focus is to secure the devolution of policing and to resolve the legislative issues around the constitutional right for provincial premiers to call referendums. Secession was not on the agenda.
South Africa is currently facing enormous challenges including mass unemployment, rampant crime, endemic corruption, failing institutions and infrastructure, and insufficient electricity. These are not theoretical issues or political debating points. They are literally destroying the lives of ordinary people. A response is demanded.
We must never forget that to a very large extent these problems are self-inflicted and a consequence of appalling policy choices made by the South African national government, and, that since 1994 the majority of Western Cape voters have never voted for that government.
The mathematical realities are that in 2024 we will almost certainly still have an ANC government in some form or another, and, should that be in coalition with more radical parties such as the EFF, then our situation will get worse rather than better.
What we may however see in 2024 is additional provinces rejecting ANC rule and increased provincial autonomy will become as important to those provinces as it is currently to the Western Cape.
The Western Cape Constitution refers to ‘We, the people of the Western Cape’. As a people we have a right to determine our own future and not to be held hostage by the choices of others who live elsewhere.
Referendums are an internationally recognised and accepted means to democratically determine the will of the people, particularly when there is clear support for a radical change of direction.
DATE: 01 October 2022
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