Premier’s remarks at Lekgotla

SKUKUZA – Premier David Mabuza has sounded a strong warning for the entire government structures to ensure that they function according to their expected mandates.

He was addressing Members of the Executive Council, Executive Mayors of our District and Local municipalities, the Director General, Head of Departments, Municipal Managers, CEOs of parastatals and government officials.

” In 2009 the electorate mandated this administration to focus on five priorities during its term in office. In a month or so, the ruling party will be expected to criss-cross the country, reporting back to the electorate about its delivery performance of the mandate as captured in the 2009 ANC Manifesto.

“As a province, we will be expected to include our own Chapter in that performance report,” he said.

Outlining the five-year performance review, Mabuza said this was a Chapter that must tell a full story as to how did we, as Mpumalanga Government, fare in terms of creating decent work and sustainable livelihood for the people of this Province..

“Yes, it is a Chapter that must give full account on our own contribution to providing quality education to our learners in the Province. Indeed, it is a Chapter that must capture our achievements with regard to our endeavours to improve the health profile of our citizens in the Province.

“Of course, it is a Chapter that must tell a full story about our dedicated efforts aimed at improving the quality of life of people living in rural areas. Without doubt, it is a Chapter that must reflect our contributions towards keeping our people safe, particularly women and children, from criminals.

“Our contributions towards ridding of corruption from our society must definitely form part of that Chapter. Therefore, I expect this collective, to conclude a final draft of our Chapter by the end of November this year. Our Economic Growth and Development Path, the Provincial Five-year Plan and the Annual SOPA pronouncements, I believe, will be our framework of references as we put together our performance report.

“As we put together this Report, it will be important that not only achievements scored are captured, but also the targets that we have failed to realise, including remedial measures that will be required to improve the situation going forward. This will definitely provide solid baseline information upon which the next administration can build on going forward,” he pointed out.

As far as this Lekgotla is concerned, he said they were all aware that at the beginning of this financial year, they have put together priorities for themselves, priorities that they committed to deliver before the end of March 2014.

“Over and above our annual priorities, we further committed ourselves to deliver certain priorities within 100 days. This involves, in the main, infrastructure backlogs with regard to Rain Floods Disaster, housing and health facilities. Six months have come and gone.

“Therefore, as this Lekgotla, we have come to assess our work, checking as to how are we faring in terms of realising our priorities for this financial year, both in terms of our expenditure and the targets that we have set for ourselves, particularly achievement of targets of the past six months.

“The preliminary reports that I have seen so far, it seems that we continue to struggle to delivery our infrastructure projects – a situation which is completely unacceptable. Our expenditure on the Infrastructure Grants is also a call for concern.

“Remember, our failure to deliver on this important area of work is having dire consequences on our ability to create the massive jobs that we have promised to our people. I hope this Lekgotla is going to spend some time on the Infrastructure Report because one has made serious commitments in the 2013/14 SOPA.

“Come March 2014, I expect to see all targets on infrastructure projects being met without fail. I believe the PMC Lekgotla has managed to come up with accelerations plans in areas where we are not doing well. Another area of concern is financial management, particularly in the domain of accruals. What is disturbing is that quite a number of Departments have shown signs of increasing accrual figures instead of doing the opposite.

“This behaviour is a complete disregard of the policy pronouncement that I have made to the public during SOPA. Fortunately, I have already instructed the DG to deal with all the individuals who have chosen to deliberately undermine policy pronouncement made by government, especially in the area of financial management.

“Clean audit by 2014 is non-negotiable. All Departments must brace themselves and work very hard to achieve this objective. The performance of the Department of Health is another area of concern, considering the size of the budget that this department is commanding.

“We have to pull all stops and ensure that this Department live up to its core mandate. I hope this Lekgotla will provide us with alternative mechanisms that will take the Department forward. As I said earlier, this performance assessment that we will be conducting in the Lekgotla is part of an exercise of rounding off our work as this Administration.

“Therefore, we are not going to be spend more time on planning issues, instead, we will be focusing on ensuring that we deliver most of the targets that we have set for ourselves at the beginning of the term. Let us be focused, our electorate are awaiting for a comprehensive feedback report,” he ended.