North West's Premier, Bushy Maape, will be held personally accountable for his undertaking to take responsibility for eradicating the corruption that has become rampant under consecutive ANC governments in the province.
In his State of the Province Address (SOPA) earlier today, Maape announced that a provincial investigation coordinator will be appointed in his Office for this very purpose.
The aim is to create a central oversight mechanism to ensure that corruption investigations are effectively conducted and concluded.
Although such a mechanism would be a good idea under normal circumstances, it could, under an ANC government with a proven culture of corruption, be exploited to manipulate corruption investigations and, thus, cover up corruption.
The Premier also announced that a mechanism was put in place to ensure that lifestyle audits are conducted on all senior managers in the North West provincial government and its entities.
The FF Plus has been demanding that such audits must be conducted by an independent body for years.
With the ANC's track record of poor to no execution of good decisions, it remains to be seen whether these initiatives will bear any fruit.
Maape's announcement that an amount of R13 billion is earmarked for the repair and upgrading of the terrible road network in the North West seems to be a step in the right direction.
It will, however, only come to fruition if professional contractors are appointed and government does not focus solely on meeting Black Economic Empowerment requirements.
Billions of rand has been misappropriated through awarding contracts to incompetent contractors.
Corruption is also at the order of the day with the awarding of these contracts. North West simply cannot afford that.
It is of the utmost importance that North West's general infrastructure is urgently repaired to, among other things, create a business-friendly environment to attract investments to the province and facilitate job creation.
The FF Plus will continue to hold the ANC government in North West accountable.
The people of North West deserve better than the ANC.
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