Premier Makhura makes many promises and shares his dreams, but he will not be able to deliver on them with his current team
2 July 2019
Premier David Makhura’s State of the Province Address (SOPA) delivered today at the University of Johannesburg’s satellite campus in Soweto was packed with promises. He also shared dreams similar to President Cyril Ramaphosa’s and he set various objectives. The FF Plus fears that he will not meet one of these objectives because he is surrounded by incompetent people who are more interested in politics than in serving the public.
At present, the most important issue is the economy. The Premier’s hands are tied in terms of certain aspects of the province’s economy because the ANC dictates policy on national level that has a detrimental effect on the economy, like Affirmative Action and Black Economic Empowerment.
He did try to set out a plan for attracting investments to Gauteng, but he failed to provide feasible steps for how he is going to do so. He mostly just gave an inventory of existing businesses in Gauteng, like motor vehicle manufacturers that made additional investments.
He, thus, does not have a plan to attract investments, particularly in the context of national level policy moving towards expropriation of property without compensation.