Zille reassures Zuma

2009-05-29 12:22

Western Cape Premier Helen Zille (Trevor Kolk, Sapa)

Cape Town - Western Cape Premier Helen Zille says she has told President Jacob Zuma he should see the DA-controlled province as an opportunity, not as a threat.

Delivering her state of the province address on Friday, she also promised what she described as a "back to basics" approach in the province, which would include a determined review of financial management and staffing.

In her address, which was not preceded by the pomp and ceremony enjoyed by her predecessors, she said she was encouraged by the "congenial and professional" working relationship she had experienced at the extended Cabinet lekgotla that ended on Thursday.

She had got the sense that Zuma meant what he said in his inauguration speech, when he invited South Africans to participate in democratic debate and air different views.

Opportunity

"During a conversation with President Zuma yesterday [Thursday], I asked him to regard the Western Cape as an opportunity, and not as a threat," she said.

"I told him that we would always act in good faith and in the interests of all our people when we propose alternative approaches to solve some of our country's most pressing problems.

"I said that we need the space to implement them."

She said no single political party had a monopoly on wisdom and solutions, and it was in everyone's interests to establish which policy interventions worked.

- SAPA