Corruption is so entrenched in the fabric of the national government that it is hard to see how it can be eradicated without destroying the governing party, Western Cape Premier Helen Zille said on Friday.

"Corruption is so entrenched in the fabric of the national government but it's hard to see how it can be eradicated without destroying the governing party. To the extent that our constitutional mandate allows, the Western Cape has a different narrative,” she said during her State of the Province Address (SoPA) in the Cape Town CBD. 

“At 83 percent, the Western Cape received the highest number of clean audits in South Africa in 2018/19. Today we are the cleanest government in South Africa.”

Delivering her last SoPA at the provincial legislature, Zille accused the governing African National Congress of collapsing many of the key areas under the national responsibility.

“Many of the key areas under the national responsibility, on which we all depend, have all collapsed. This includes, most worryingly the criminal justice pipeline, policing and investigating capacity, the train system, major water supply projects, land restitution and redistribution, state procurement systems and of course all State-owned enterprises,” Zille said.

She said when the Democratic Alliance took over in 2009, there were no clean audits in the province from the Auditor General, apart from the Cape Town metro.

"Fast forward to 2016/17, and 21 municipalities in the Western Cape achieved clean audits. In fact, throughout SA, 64 percent of all clean local audits were from one province, the Western Cape. During this time, we have learnt first-hand how an economy responds to good and stable governance,"said Zille.

"Our key economic strategy, known a Project Khulisa has succeeded because of its focus on sectors with high-growth potential, low barriers to entry, especially for young people, and rural impact. The sectors are agri-processing, tourism, oil and gas and the green economy." 

The results of the project reflected on the unemployment rate across the country as the Western Cape, according to Zille, has the lowest unemployment rate at a full 14 percentage points below the national average on the expanded definition.

She said that they have created 508,000 new jobs in the Western Cape since the start of the current administration’s first term, based on the latest statistics compared to the third Quarter 2009. 

"It is worth mentioning that if every province had done that, South Africa would be close to the five-million job opportunities Jacob Zuma promised the country by 2020. Employment in the Western Cape grew by 24.8 percent between 2009 and 2018, well ahead of Gauteng at 18.6 percent and KZN at 8.8 percent. We have South Africa’s lowest rural unemployment rate at 15.7 percent."