During a meeting of the North West Legislature’s Portfolio Committee on Cooperative governance, Housing and Traditional Affairs (COGTA), it became abundantly clear that the appointment of administrators for the province did not bear much fruit, but that enormous expenses were incurred with the appointments.
In the period between 2018 and 2020, approximately R70 million was spent on the administrators, a shocking R46 million of which was squandered on, among other things, luxury accommodation, security and catering. This money could clearly have made a big difference if it had been used for social relief, the upkeep of infrastructure or addressing the need for housing – with the condition that a responsible government managed it all.
The MEC for Finance in the North West, Motlalepula Rosho, admitted on behalf of the provincial Treasury that the 2019/2020 audit results for public institutions and provincial departments look much the same as the audit results of the previous financial year.
It is a shame that basically no evidence of improvements in the provincial departments and public institutions’ service delivery could be submitted to the meeting.
In 2018, the national government specifically appointed these administrators to, in terms of Section 100 of the Constitution, intervene in the North West and investigate and rectify the poor management of public institutions and departments in the province.
Premier Job Mokgoro already admitted in June 2020 that the intervention was fruitless and that it actually hampered governance in the North West.
The North West province has been plagued by mismanagement, corruption and misappropriation under the ANC-controlled government for a long time.
It is, therefore, an even greater shame that the ANC government keeps making ideologically driven appointments of deployed ANC cadres under the smokescreen of “intervention” in a province that is on the edge of utter ruin.
Read the original article in Afrikaans by De Wet Nel on FF Plus
