The following speeches were delivered in the Gauteng Provincial Legislature today by DA Gauteng Shadow MEC for Infrastructure Development, Alan Fuchs MPL and the DA Gauteng Spokesperson for Infrastructure Development, Janho Engelbrecht MPL, during a debate on the 2016/17 Annual Report for the Department of Infrastructure Development.
Speech by
Alan Fuchs MPL
“DID is underperforming and failing to deliver services timeously”
- The new MEC, to his credit, tried to instil some urgency in the department. Certain building blocks have been implemented such as the elements of national Treasury’s IDMS methodology which has been put in place at great cost; Lutsinga House has become operational and the Project Readiness Review Matrix has been implemented.
• The only real positive improvement seen in this annual report is an increase in the successful completion of KPIs within 1 of the 3 programmes in the department, namely Public Works. The increase is positive, but still falls short of the desired targets. The other two programmes, namely EPWP and Administration have performed extremely poorly.
• Some of the KPIs that have not been met include the percentage reduction in the backlog of maintenance queries, the amount of revenue collected and the number of market-related rental leases entered into, a delay in the Kopanong Precinct project, the targets for EPWP work opportunities created by DID not being met , the total failure of skills development training, lack of adherence to GIAMA, deterioration in the department’s ability to pay creditors within 30 days, a 50% vacancy rate amongst engineers and professional staff and most importantly, the vast majority of projects not being completed within time or budget constraints.
• Accruals of 20% of the total budget amounting to more than half a billion rand, impact on the department’s ability to pay creditors within 30 days and results in a department that is underfunded.
• The Kopanong Precinct project has been delayed due to the fact that the feasibility study shows that the project is not affordable within current fiscal constraints. The submissions by the transaction advisors to national treasury have been returned to the department to rework the affordability calculations.
• All in all, this annual report paints a picture of a department that has put building blocks in place, but that has not made any great advances in terms of performance.
The full speech can be obtained here.
Speech by
Janho Engelbrecht MPL
“MEC Mamabolo’s empty promises and broken dreams”
- MEC Jacob Mamabolo made a number of promises in this House, ranging from turnaround strategies to obtaining a clean or unqualified audit.
• MEC Mamabolo, like his fellow ANC comrades like to talk the talk, but can’t walk the walk.
• In the report of the auditor-general on the DID Annual Report, the last sentence of point 9 states that, “The amount of R584,7 million would therefore have constituted unauthorized expenditure had the amounts due been paid in a timely manner.”
• An accrual is a matter of emphasis, unauthorized expenditure of more than half a billion rand is a qualification.
• In statements made by both the Premier and the MEC on various occasions, the pursuit of clean or unqualified audit reports seems to be somewhat of an obsession.
The full speech can be obtained here.