The Freedom Front Plus (VF Plus) in Mpumalanga will keep its focus firmly on poor service delivery in the province, even though the new Premier, Mr Mandla Ndlovu, appears to be a man of his word since his tenure started last year.
The fact that he decisively addressed the province’s financial mismanagement and poor service delivery, and tabled viable plans, raises hope for real change to come.
It is encouraging to see that since Mr Ndlovu has been at the steer of things, progress has been made with projects that are once again up and running after years of stagnating.
What is, however, alarming is that the new Premier is promising new projects and job creation before the existing projects have been finalised.
He will need to make some drastic changes on municipal level as well, as it seems to be the elephant in the room.
Roads, water and safety are some of the biggest challenges faced by Mpumalanga. Rural and urban areas are also affected by years of infrastructure decay and financial mismanagement by most of the municipalities in the province. The Premier failed to say how he plans to address this mismanagement and corruption.
The lack of skills, financial discipline, accountability and stable, ethical leadership on municipal level has to be rectified.
In respect to the high crime levels in the province, the party would like to see the Premier prioritise more stringent measures to curb the influx of criminal elements across borders. The Premier has already demonstrated that he is quite able through the successful operations in which illegal miners (zama-zamas) were arrested. Such positive operations should be expanded to the various borders.
The Freedom Front Plus will diligently keep fulfilling its oversight role in the Legislature. The party will keep increasing the pressure to ensure that the Premier keeps his promises.
