Makhura’s government is a failure

19 February 2019

Despite the attempts by the Gauteng Premier, Mr David Makhura, to polish his provincial government's image and its operations of the last five years during his last provincial address (SOPA) in Alberton, it is clear that his government failed the residents of Gauteng as it was unable to turn the province around.

Over the last five years, numerous scandals sent shock waves through the province, among others, the Esidimeni Life tragedy in which two of his former MECs were involved, namely Qedani Mahlangu and Brian Hlongwa. Mahlangu and Hlongwa played a key role in the destruction of the province's health care system and Hlongwa was also implicated in alleged corruption amounting to nearly R1,2 billion.

The health care system has deteriorated to such an extent that Gwen Ramokgopa was appointed as MEC in Mahlangu's place to get things back on track, but thus far she has been unsuccessful.

The province's infrastructure has also deteriorated as provincial buildings, schools, hospitals, roads and bridges were not properly maintained. The Emfuleni Local Municipality ceased to function and this week, the national defence force announced that it cannot continue with the clean-up and repair work without the necessary funding.

The Hoërskool Driehoek tragedy is still fresh in everyone's memory and last week, the MEC for Education said that many schools in Gauteng are disasters waiting to happen. The roofs of hospitals have collapsed, for example, at Charlotte Maxeke in Johannesburg and sink holes are a regular occurrence on the province's roads.

The local government is busy falling apart as well and municipalities like Rand West, Merafong and Mogale City are infamous for poor service delivery because the allocated funds are either not utilised or because tax payers' money is misappropriated – like with the VBS Bank scandal.

Over the last five years, the various MECs for Local Government, namely Jakob Mamabolo, Paul Mashatile, and since last year, Uhuru Moiloa, were unable to turn the municipalities in Gauteng where the ANC is still in power around and as a result, Emfuleni was placed under administration and other municipalities in the West Rand are not functioning as they should.

The three MECs were also unable to provide enough housing for the poor in the province and during today's provincial address, it was announced that the housing backlog currently stands on 1 million units.

This is despite the fact that the Premier announced in the Legislature in 2015 that by this year (2019) all informal settlements will be done away with. Nothing came of his empty promise.

The Department of Transport in the province had been fairly stable over the last five years, but at the end of last year things went awry when the MEC, Ismail Vadi, announced that he is going to rename provincial roads after anti-apartheid heroes.

The funds should rather be used to repair sink holes and to build new roads so as to relieve traffic congestion in Gauteng. Meanwhile, problems arose again at licensing offices at the end of 2018 and as a result, there is a serious backlog with the issuing of driver's licences and the renewal of motor vehicle licenses.

During the Committee meeting last week, the FF Plus demanded that these problems must be investigated urgently.

E-toll is yet another problem that Makhura simply cannot solve no matter how hard he tries or how loudly he voices his misgivings about the system – it remains a given that an illegal system, which is not very successful, was implemented and the ANC on national level will simply not pay any attention to Makhura.

Education is also a problematic department. The MEC, Panyaza Lesufi, made numerous appearances in court over the last five years due to his attempts to get rid of Afrikaans and Afrikaans schools. Lesufi lost case after case and despite it costing so much money, he is still trying to force his political will on schools and consequently, he is not fully focused on running his Department.

The Education Department did not build enough schools over the last five years and, thus, the province is struggling to place all the learners in schools. When the schools opened in January this year, there were still 17000 learners who had not been placed.

The Department of Social Development also found itself in a difficult situation last year after it failed to pay out grants to children's homes in the province. As a result, various children's homes were faced with the possibility of having to close their doors, but after the FF Plus put pressure on the Department, the payments were made.

The FF Plus sees Makhura's government as an absolute failure and the Premier's term of office over the last five years will be remembered as a term of infamy and the collapse of service delivery.

With the upcoming elections, Gauteng residents have the opportunity to get rid of the failing ANC government in Gauteng and to elect an accountable and responsible coalition government of which the FF Plus will be a part to keep fighting for residents' constitutional rights and to ensure proper service delivery.

Use your vote in the elections to fight back against poor service delivery, corruption, crime and collapsing infrastructure. Vote for the FF Plus to finally get rid of the ANC in Gauteng.

Issued by Philip van Staden, FF Plus MPL: Gauteng Legislature, 20 February 2019