DA REJECTS GAUTENG PREMIER'S BUDGET VOTE

Summary extract of Speech by Jack Bloom MPL on Budget Vote of the Premier's Office, May 27 2013

Madam Speaker, the DA will not be supporting the budget vote for the Premier's Office.

The history of this office shows an ineffectiveness that is likely to be repeated in the year ahead.

The Premier's Office surrendered R6 million back to Treasury in the past financial year due to the non-filling of posts for the new approved personnel structure.

The new structure is being implemented in phases over three years, and vacant posts are being reprioritised.

So Madam Premier, when you leave office at the end of your five year mandate, you will not even have succeeded in fully staffing your own office so that it can fulfil its vital function in leading this administration.

Despite the Premier's pledge in February 2011 that all vacant posts in the entire provincial government would be filled within six months, the vacancy rate remains well above 10%..

Another area where the Honourable Premier is all big talk and little action is fighting corruption. According to the Public Service Commission, the Gauteng Provincial Government has ignored 729 out of 1540 corruption tip-offs from the National Anti-Corruption Hotline.

This means that just under half, 47%, were simply ignored, with no feedback given at all.

Only 578 out of 1540 cases, which is 38%, were closed.

Gauteng received the highest number of corruption tip-offs of all the provinces, more than 50% higher than the next highest province, Mpumalanga, which had 1000 cases.

The failure to follow up on corruption tip-offs defeats the whole purpose of an anti-corruption hotline.

This administration is awash with fishy contracts that have cost us dearly in wasted expenditure.

Doctors who abuse overtime are chased down, but others get off because they don't have high'level political connections.

I wish to inform this House that the criminal charge that I laid against Ms Benedicta Monama for signing an illegal R3 billion contract for Drivers Licence Testing Centres is currently with the Public Prosecutor.

This is a prime example of a possible corruption case where this administration simply let the alleged perpetrator go.

So, Madam Premier, you will not go down in history as a great corruption fighter.

Another disappointing area has been in formulating a litigation strategy to deal with the barrage of legal cases faced by this administration.

Last year the Sheriff of the court arrived twice at the premier's office to cart away furniture to pay for a court order for medical negligence.

Unbelievably, this happened again this year, this time at the premier's official residence.

On 19 March, the Sheriff was rebuffed by security at the Bryanston residence when he tried to attach furniture because of a R5 million unpaid court order for medical negligence.

A warrant against the Premier was granted on 18 January this year, but the premier's office still refused to pay even though 15.5% punitive interest is charged. The interest from this late payment is more than R300 000.

It is really shameful that the Premier repeatedly fails to pay court orders unless pressured by having her goods attached..

The premier must obey the law like everyone else and pay up in good time without wasting money on high interest charges.

Another area or repeated failure is paying suppliers within 30 days.

But in the January to March quarter, the Premier's Office paid only 520 out of 603 companies i.e. 75%, in this time period.

This is really a poor example for other departments.

In general, there is poor monitoring and evaluation by the Premier's Office.

This is why she was caught by surprise that none of the promised Youth Enterprise Hubs had been built, and that the youth employment targets were a tragic fantasy.

There should have been early warning about this, as well as the on-going failure to spent capital budgets in most departments.

This history of failure is why we will not be supporting this budget vote.

Issued by Jack Bloom MPL, DA Gauteng Caucus Leader, May 27 2013

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