Here follow excerpts from the speech delivered by FF Plus MPL, Tammy Wessels, in the Free State Legislature earlier during the budget vote debate of the Free State Department of Sport, Arts and Culture.
The Free State Department of Sport, Arts and Culture is failing in its tasks of economic development, nation building, social upliftment and the expansion and development of our official languages because it is wasting essential funds on the wrong things.
The Department plans to erect numerous monuments at the cost of millions of rands instead of investing the money in museums and libraries in the Free State.
The building and upkeep of sports grounds, libraries and theatres are overlooked while millions of rands are being pumped into the Macufe festival – a festival that was supposed to be self sufficient and that was supposed to provide income for the Department.
South Africa’s eleven official languages are not being developed nor valued in the Free State. It took the ANC government 21 years to implement the Free State Language Act and yet official advertisements are still published in English only.
The Department is neglecting to do its constitutional duty to promote and develop the country’s official languages, and in particular the languages mostly spoken in the Free State.
The ANC government must stop hiding behind the old rhetoric of Apartheid and black and white. They must take responsibility for what they have done over the last 25 years and must stop making race related excuses for the mess they have made.
Read the original article in Afrikaans on FF Plus
South Africa Today – South Africa News
