KZN Cabinet Report Card: New brooms don’t always sweep clean

11 December 2019

Today’s annual KwaZulu-Natal Cabinet report card by the Democratic Alliance (DA) shows that new brooms don’t always sweep clean.

Despite a largely new line-up within the provincial cabinet, several MECs continue to under-perform and are not getting to grips with the underlying issues that continue to plague their Departments.

Apart from KZN Finance MEC, Ravi Pillay – who had the luxury of inheriting a well-oiled machine – most MECs have scored below par. Of particular concern is the performance by Premier, SihleZikalala, who has shown himself to be more interested in appeasing the different factions within his party than in getting down to the business of running the province. This poor performance unfortunately extends to his relationships with political parties in the province, which he shows no interest in uniting or creating better working relationships with.

This years’ average score for MECs is a ‘D’. This is for the single reason that the DA has acknowledged that many of them are new to their Departments and that we need to give them time to make good on their many promises.

Regrettably, a lack of accountability remains the biggest issue within the provincial cabinet and the DA has again had to fight hard to ensure that the ANC ‘walks the talk’. This failure by the ANC has extended to written parliamentary questions, a critical oversight tool for opposition parties in carrying out their constitutional duty to hold the Executive to account.

Since the beginning of the new parliamentary term in May, the DA has submitted 93 written parliamentary questions, each of which relates to an issue that profoundly affects the citizens of our province. Of these, to date only 46 have been responded to by the Premier and his MECs. It is also telling that both the IFP and the ANC lag way behind the DA in this area, submitting 54 and 21 questions respectively.

Then there is the policy of cadre deployment, deploying civil servants for political loyalty over merit, combined with the elevation of the party and its interests over the state, which has opened the way for massive endemic corruption.

It is difficult to comprehend that even after 25 years, the ANC continues to make the same mistakes year in and year out. The evidence of our disastrous economy, hopeless unemployment situation, dismal SOE histories should be sending a loud and clear message that placing party priorities over government performance simply does not work.

As KZN’s only real opposition, the DA in the KZN Legislature will continue the fight for accountability and service delivery in the interests of the province’s people. Where the ANC have performed, we will acknowledge this and where they have not, we will continue to expose their shortcomings.

Issued by Zwakele Mncwango,Leader of the DA in the KZN Legislature, 11 December 2019