OUR VIEW: The people are waiting
The past week has been embroiled with budget and policy presentations by the different provincial government departments, including some district and local municipalities.
In most of the presentations, they rightly responded to people’s expectations, but some were just lukewarm, being repetitions of past impractical and never deliverable promises.
Be that as it may, on the surface, government looks set to deliver on its promises, if only it guards against the past misappropriation of funds and delivers as promised.
Increased food production in the agriculture department looks very promising, especially as it has indicated that it will intensify luring youth to undertake agricultural training and subsequently incorporate them as emerging farmers, which will eventually lead to them being commercial farmers.
But the department should heed the warning of the EFF’s Collen Sedibe in the legislature last week, when he said the programme should not be confined only to ANC Youth League members, but all the youth.
Sports and recreation has been too celebratory during its delivery of its budget speech. My concern is that yes, provincial sports and arts personalities need to be praised for their success on provincial, national and international platforms.
The question arises here: has the department played a part in them attaining that success or did they join in the celebration of the individuals and teams afterwards?
There is quite a lot to do in sports and recreation. I am glad that last Friday they officially launched the provincial sports awards that will recognise all credible sports personalities and teams. What we also need to see is development at grass roots level.
They need to contribute in terms of sports and recreation in rural areas and townships where talent can be nurtured. I hope the MEC will not forget she mentioned something vital last week: that Mbombela Stadium should not be a white elephant with no activities. Local sports fanatics have been enjoying a small fraction of the Premier Soccer League games here.
The league fixtures have been released and there is no indication of any games featured for Mbombela Stadium. Will the honourable MEC negotiate for games to be featured here, please? The people are waiting.
