Excerpt from speech on Free State budget in the Free State Legislature: The Free State provincial departments are bleeding funds dry. The departments are being mismanaged and are, thus, suffering losses of billions of rands during a budget term due to poor planning, poor management and misguided priorities.
There is an utter lack of proper planning in advance, impact studies, complete business plans and there is no evaluation of the execution afterwards.
Numerous projects fail because the proper controls are not in place.
The Free State is like a cosmic black hole that just swallows up projects amounting to billions of rands and where the so-called beneficiaries and communities are left with nothing. Shining examples include the Vrede Dairy Project, the Ramkraal Legislature Complex, the Gariep fish project and the Madeira Flower Festival. Likewise, Macufe is costing the province more money than what it is making.
Project Dignity (aimed at addressing girls’ need for sanitary products), which was launched by the Department of Social Development, is a wonderful idea but the Department has shown time and again that it is unable to manage projects successfully.
Year after year the promise is made that the Botshabelo Rehabilitation Centre will be completed, but it is still not functional. Thus, the FF Plus is not sure that the R6 million that was allocated to Project Dignity will indeed reach the intended beneficiaries.
The wage bills of the provincial departments are much too high as approximately 60% to 80% of the departments’ budgets go to paying salaries. This is typical of the ANC government that first and foremost looks out for itself and its cadres while beneficiaries and tax payers get the short end of the stick.
It is time for a new dispensation, it is time to fight back against the large-scale exploitation of the Free State fiscus and its people. The ANC must be punished at the polls on the 8th of May. The key to unlocking change is in the hands of the voters.
Read the original article in Afrikaans by Tammy Wessels on FF Plus
South Africa Today – South Africa News
