Township supplier growth: Can you trust MEC Creecy’s numbers?

10 October 2017

It has emerged that the ANC-run Gauteng Provincial Government (GPG) is potentially cooking its books to appear to be stimulating township spend in the Southern and Western corridors of the province.

According to the Gauteng Treasury’s Annual Report for the 2016/17 financial year, the number of suppliers on the GPG’s books based on the Southern and Western Corridors amounted to 1350.

The Annual Report figure can be accessed here.

However, in a written reply from Gauteng MEC for Finance, Barbara Creecy, dated 28 September 2017, the total number of suppliers for these regions only amounts to 385.

The reply can be accessed here.

MEC Creecy has either fiddled the Annual Report to stay in Gauteng Premier, David Makhura’s good books, or the September reply is accurate and little to no progress is being made to transform the lives of business people living in these corridors.

Historically the Southern and Western regions of Gauteng have been the most neglected regions of the province. Residents who suffered the indecency of Apartheid spatial planning continue to remain excluded from nodes of economic inclusion.

By manipulating figures to suit her party’s agenda, and pronounce itself as the “good” ANC, Creecy has simply followed up on her party’s true nature, one which leaves the forgotten behind.

Bridging the inequalities of the past by ensuring that new participants are able to access the economy is the keystone of DA policy.

Under the DA, real inclusive growth will be allowed to flourish – not made up numbers to appease political masters.

I will request that MEC Creecy accounts for the discrepancy in these figures and that action be taken should it emerge that the figures in the Annual Report cannot be verified.

Issued by Adriana Randall, DA Gauteng Shadow MEC for Finance, 10 October 2017