Mabuza calls for radical and accelerated service

KRUGER NATIONAL PARK-The premier Mr David Mabuza has called on those in government leadership positions in the province to ensure a radical and accelerated delivery of services adding that their attitude would either make or break the ruling party.

Mabuza was speaking at a three-day executive council lekgotla in Skukuza in the Kruger National Park.

“Time is against us, we need to improve our pace and our way of doing things, the level of patience of our people is at a point where they can lose it at any time. People are getting impatient with their own government, and depending on the attitude of those in leadership positions, people may even go astray.

“Therefore, our attitude in delivering these much-needed services to the people might make or break the ruling party and us. We need men and women who are better shaped for this challenge.”

He said those in leadership of the provincial government, needed to be the first to assess themselves and not wait for others to criticise them.

“This laissez-faire attitude must stop, we must be radical in our approach, furthermore we must open more space for public participation since we have a duty to take our people along, otherwise they will not understand this difficult journey of changing their lives for the better undertaken by the ruling party.

“This second phase of our transition must be radical, it must improve the conditions our people are living in. For us to achieve our objectives would mean that we must use the resources we have very efficiently and minimise wastages. I still believe that the ruling party has the ability to run this country and it is in the best interest of the people.”

He encouraged them to take decisions that would take the country a step further, adding that five years was a very short time running government as most time was wasted in settling the new leaders.

Meanwhile, the lekgotla commended the Provincial Department of Education for good spending on its budget in the first six months of the financial year. The department was further applauded for its continued improvement on matric results.

It was asked, among others, to put more effort into increasing the bachelor-pass rate to bridge the skills gap in the province.

At the same time, the lekgotla further tasked the Department of Health to ensure implementation of its executive council-approved turnaround plan without failure, since the curatorship had been lifted about two weeks ago.

According to the lekgotla, the department “must fast-track” the filling of vacant funded positions in order to enhance leadership within various institutions like hospitals.

“Despite numerous challenges faced by the Department of Health, we have seen significant improvement in the overall management of this department. It is against this backdrop that we have taken a cautious decision to remove curatorship of this department. We will continue to pay close attention and monitor its recovery up to a point where it can stand on its feet,” said Mabuza.

The department has crafted a turnaround strategy with a clearly defined problem statement and has put forward very bold change-management proposals with key pillars of the programmes.

It was faced with vast, diverse and complicated challenges which led to it being placed under curatorship. Challenges ranged from poor leadership and poor financial management to the lack of risk assessment and quick response.

He emphasised that before the curatorship was put in place, the department’s leadership deliberately did the wrong things and they were not willing to take guidance from the executive council.

He said certain senior officials from the department had been fired.

“Those officials were very rude and their defiance was clear. They had no interest of the people in working for this government. We are happy now, we are right on track. We will resolve all the problems faced by the health department,”