"The plan offered by the Free State Premier, Sisi Notmbela, during her State of the Province Address (SOPA) on Tuesday offers no real solutions," says Dévar Smit, FF Plus MPL in the Free State.
Smith says Ntombela missed a golden opportunity to put forward concrete plans for rebuilding the Free State.
The Premier's insipid speech, however, did not address the province's problems.
Smit says the FF Plus wishes to join hands with the Premier to build a better Free State, but finds it alarming that Ntombela offered nothing new in her SOPA.
Ntombela wants to create jobs, but offers no plan for job creation outside of the government.
She admitted that Free State municipalities are a cause for concern due to their poor financial performance and spoke of immediate intervention, but made no mention of corrupt and incompetent officials and politicians.
"As long as the Premier does not have the political will to take action against those who do not implement the basic municipal disciplines, municipalities in the province will not improve. Most of the economic activities take place within municipalities and as long as service delivery is poor, the private sector will remain hesitant to invest in the Free State.
"Businesses will invest in municipalities that are financially healthy and that have good service delivery. "Thus, jobs are created in the private sector and socio-economic relief follows. Offering a list of unsuccessful government programmes year after year will not bring about growth.
"Additionally, these municipalities' residents must be provided with food by farmers and farm workers whose role in the economy and food security has once again been overlooked seeing as no mention was made of support for the agricultural sector or rural safety.
"Where President Cyril Ramaphosa offered concrete objectives for his dream for South Africa, Ntombela today missed a golden opportunity to put forward a feasible plan of action for the Free State's problems of poor service delivery, poor economy and state capture.
"The Free State is not only poor in terms of its economy, it is also lacking leadership in the provincial government as no one seems to know how to build a better province," Smit says.
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