Umm Muhammed Umar

Gauteng premier David Makhura is looking beyond the COVID 19 outbreak to deal with the recovery of the province’s economy and infrastructure. He was delivering his State of the Province Address at the Brixton multipurpose centre in Johannesburg on Monday morning. Makhura called for all hands-on deck as the province move from the health emergency, saying that the economy and jobs were the number one priority for the next two years. For a reaction to the SOPA, Radio Islam spoke to Gauteng DA leader, Solly Msimanga.

Msimanga said that he was disappointed with the premier’s address to the province. Msimanga had last week given an ‘alternative’ address – or what the DA considered the true state of the province. He said, in relation to Mathura’s address, “If you listen, or you read, for the very first three or four paragraphs of his speech, you realize that he is somebody who is admitting that they have been failing.” More concerning, he added, “But if you go on, you realize these are people who don’t even have a plan in terms of how to turn things around and get out of the mess that they’ve created.” Msimanga gave a number of examples of the failure of the ANC in Gauteng Province, saying, “he (Makhura) raises the issue about infrastructure; he then says that the department of Infrastructure and Development……. will not be continuing with some of its core responsibilities, i.e. building and maintaining of public infrastructure.” Msimanga said that the DA had already suggested that the maintenance of hospitals be handed over to the Department of Health, and that the building and maintaining of infrastructure be given over to the Department of Education, so that people could be held accountable, and the work could get another example Msimanga gave was that of the Gauteng Health Department having used R500 million of Covid-19 funds to refurbish the Anglo Ashanti hospital in the Far West Rand, which currently has only 3 patients.  He provided a further example of Charlotte Maxeke hospital, on which R150 million had been spent, with ‘very little that they can show for it’. Msimanga added, “You go then to a number of schools that have been built that are not compliant right now, and cannot be used, to some which are built but cannot be fully occupied because they don’t meet the required standard.” An outraged Msimanga said that the fact that Makhura was still not willing to do away with the Department of Infrastructure was a slap in the face of the people.

On the issue of the constant corruption taking place, Masimanga said, “We are told, “no I’m going to release this report,” but there’s quite a lot of reports that we have been promised since 2015….. I think we are talking no less than 13 forensic reports.” He attributed the reports not being made public to very senior politicians having been implicated in them. He said, “And you know, once these are made public, people will have to go to jail.” Msimanga added, “And now he’s (Makhura) looking at lifestyle audits as well. And he’s never really committing because he’s been saying for the last three years, he will subject himself and his executive to a lifestyle audit.” He said that when asked about it, all Makhura says is that he’s had interviews with some of the senior personnel who are in the investigative unit. Disparagingly, Msimanga said, “there was really nothing to, you know, to be said or to even celebrate in terms of any kind of achievement in the long term, or actually even the plans going forward.”