Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi delivers his maiden SOPA in the Johannesburg City Hall. [Picture: Nasreen Naidoo/Salaamedia]
Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi made wide-ranging commitments to residents in the State of the Province Address (SOPA) – from good, sus to outright comical and absurd.
The premier delivered his maiden SOPA to the Gauteng Legislature and residents of South Africa’s most populous province at the Johannesburg City Hall on Monday evening.
Lesufi began by paying tribute to Emma Sathekge, the 15-year-old student activist from Pretoria who died at the brutal hands of apartheid authorities in 1984. He then wasted no time jumping straight into his administration’s supposed commitment to eradicating crime, after which he touched on an array of matters affecting Gauteng residents.
He spoke about crime, climate change, education, healthcare, transport, housing, and and and. Here are some of the highlights from the address:
SMread: Panyaza Lesufi cannot make empty promises at SOPA
Crime, the ‘apex priority’
South Africa is no stranger to ranking notoriously high on lists of the most dangerous countries, but Gauteng is the hub of this crime in the country. At least Lesufi was sober enough to recognise this (albeit not without pulling the Western Cape under the bus, too).
“Today, let’s openly admit, our province is a home of heartless and merciless criminals. They do as they wish,” he said, before warning, “If this situation is left unattended it will be the end of all of us.”
In keeping with his commitment to “unleash all our resources at our disposal to tackle crime”, Lesufi said the crime-fighting budget of R750 million would be increased to a vague “multi-billion” Rand budget over the next three years.
Beginning in April, Lesufi promised, the provincial government would undertake an extensive rollout of high tech, face and car recognition CCTVs in townships, suburbia and business districts. Equipping residents with fancy e-panic buttons are also part of his plans to tackle crime in the province, as well as two new helicopters.
Save the jokes for later, let’s talk about his commitment to improving education in the province.
SMread: Ramaphosa is building a super presidency while his ministers sit at home
Energy
A solar power facility – part of a R1.2 billion allocation – will soon be erected in the West Rand to allow Gauteng to be less dependent on Eskom for its electricity supply. Lesufi announced this plan amidst Stage 6 loadshedding that was implemented indefinitely.
“Gauteng Province electricity deficit is [forecast] at 4058 megavolt-ampermps (MVA) in 2025. This is given Eskom’s inability to generate more from its current fleet,” he said.
Lesufi promised that, in the next few weeks, six developers will be appointed to construct a 800 MW solar farm in Merafong.
Education
According to Lesufi, the province delivers quality education. Fair enough, the 84% matric pass rate might go some way in backing that up, but the parents who struggle to obtain placement in the clogged schooling system might have reason to grumble.
Said Lesufi in his address: “Our education system is overcrowded which is exacerbated by high levels of in-migration. Unless we do something differently, our education system will collapse”.
The premier said the Gauteng provincial government allocated R6 billion for the construction of new schools in “high pressured communities”. Furthermore, R1.5 billion from the National Treasury would allow them to demolish mobile and asbestos schools. All-in-all, Lesfu pledged to rebuild 18 new schools in Gauteng – whether in a year, two or ten, nobody knows.
SMread: CC to probe fresh produce prices in SA
Social development and healthcare
Lesufi went straight to tear down the castle of hardworking NGOs in the province by cynically disregarding their impact on communities.
“The Non-Government Sector received more than R2 billion from the provincial government. With this amount of funding, we should be impactful in the fight against social ills,” he said.
He then went on to announce that an independent audit team will audit all NGOs and “redirect them to the new mandate of our provincial government”. He said this was necessitated by squabbles and accounting irregularities by many in this space.
He said R64 460 million was set aside for food parcels for poverty-stricken communities.
Regarding the strained healthcare system in the province, Lesufi promised to rehabilitate hospitals and build new ones in Gauteng – especially in Olievenhoutbosch, Diepsloot, Daveyton, Orange Farm and other townships.
In the new financial year, we would have completed and operationalized six new clinics that will finally bring much-needed services to the people of Hammanskraal, Daveyton, Soshanguve and Sebokeng,” Lesufi added.
The outright comical
Set your scepticism aside and suppose the promises thus far were reasonable. But here’s where it becomes outright comical. It’s what motivated analysts to describe Lesufi’s promise of a futuristic Gauteng as a “pie in the sky”.
Apparently, RDP houses will receive biometric access systems that would prevent the illegal occupation of housing by non-eligible residents. Who would get them, when and how these would work, with ongoing loadshedding, remains a mystery to all but Lesufi himself.
There’s also a train service in the pipeline. A new “faster and efficient” rail network is meant to link Gauteng with Limpopo – they’re in discussions with the Limpopo Provincial Government in this regard.
This while public transport within the province itself is in a continued state of decay – in spite of several fixes here and there to get the trains back on track. The Gautrain is reportedly running at a loss, taxpayers having forked out almost R1.6 billion during the 2017/2018 financial year to keep it running.
Perhaps Lesufi might genuinely have huge ambitions for the province, but if that’s not the case, he might wish to heed Abraham Lincoln’s warning to politicians who seek to make promises that they know full well they can’t deliver.
“You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time,” said the former American statesman.
Oh, one more thing: Lesufi reiterated an old promise to scrap e-tolls …
