The Premier Must Fire Mmemezi

The Gauteng Premier, Nomvula Mokonyane, must fire Local Government and Housing MEC, Humphrey Mmemezi, for apparently misleading the Gauteng Legislature about the accident damage to his official vehicle.


According to a press report today, the BMW in which Mmemezi had an accident in November 2011 in the Eastern Cape, will be auctioned off. Of concern is a comment by one of his department’s officials that the vehicle is not in mechanical running order which will affect the price that can be obtained for the vehicle at an auction.

This is despite a written response to my formal question in the Gauteng Legislature earlier this year in which Mmemezi indicated that the vehicle was in “good condition, except the left rear door”. He repeated these claims in the legislature during oral question time in March this year.

However, it has now transpired that the vehicle has sustained much more damage than revealed by the MEC. He also gave the impression that all was in order with the accident report and that the insurance claim will be dealt with through administrative procedures in his department. The question remains, why has the car not yet been repaired by the insurance six months after the crash?

The MEC has ducked my follow-up questions to him by continuously requesting extensions in answering them. These questions requested more details about the accident, the accident report and the insurance claim. Now it is clear why he has been ducking these questions.

The MEC has had ample opportunity to come clean about the accident but has not done so, therefore the Premier has no choice but to fire him as she did with her former Agriculture MEC, Nomantu Nkomo-Ralehoko when her vehicle was stolen. The precedent has been set by the Premier and she must act consistently.

The DA will continue to demand answers about the crash from the MEC and his department and will maintain pressure on the Premier to fire the MEC.

Extract from a Speech in Reply to Premier's State of the Province Address

In the Premier’s speech with regards local government, not only was nothing new on offer for local government in our province, the Premier ignored it almost in total. Apart from mentioning a single local government system, the merger of the Kungwini, Nokeng tsa Taemane and Metsweding municipalities with the Tshwane metro as well as the Joburg billing crisis, the premier offered no insight into the future of local government in Gauteng.
I do however welcome the Premier’s acknowledgement that the Joburg billing crisis is indeed a “crisis” despite her colleague the Mayor refusing to acknowledge it as such. What I also missed is the detail on local government going forward with vision 2055. A number of questions hang in the air.

1. What happened to the two new cities that the ANC’s provincial secretary alluded to when he announced vision 2055?
2. What will the single local government system look like?
3. How will municipalities link into the Gauteng Spatial Development Framework?
4. What is the future of the Gauteng City Region and what will it look like?

The Premier had a golden opportunity to address the financial woes of municipalities as well as the lack of critical skills that hamper service delivery, probably the two biggest problems in local government today. However, she decided to focus only on what can best be described as election promises.
Once again I would like to repeat that we can solve the problems experienced by local government by doing three things, namely:

1. Restore proper financial management in our municipalities;
2. Appoint qualified officials in specialized posts; and
3. Eradicate external political influence to allow Mayors to make independent, transparent and accountable decisions in the best interest of their municipalities.

I believe that the main focal point of the department should be to restore service delivery by restoring proper financial management and controls in municipalities. Without money municipalities will not be able to deliver the services expected of them. We need skilled, professional career local government officials and not deployed cadres which leads to tender and other forms of corruption. We need people in positions that can do the work and as Cape town has proven, this can be achieved while empowering those previously disadvantaged South Africans.”

GETTING RID OF PROVINCES WILL BE ADMISSION OF ANC FAILURE

Some positive news recently emerged after DA Leader and Western Cape Premier, Helen Zille, met with President Jacob Zuma. This was that provinces are not in the immediate firing line of the ANC Government. However, Zuma’s assurances did not close the door on either the debate or the possibility of provinces disappearing in the future. He just indicated that provinces were here to stay for the time being and that he will inform other parties when this changes. Thus it can be argued that the door is still wide open on the issue.
A further sign that the door is still wide open on the future of provinces is the fact that Constitutional Amendment 17 is still on the table. This amendment will give central government the power to intervene in the executive decision making of municipal councils should it experience resistance to the execution of its centrally formulated schemes. Power, I would suggest, paving the way for the abolition of provinces and regulating a centralised relationship between national and local government.
Should provinces be abolished in the future it will lead to an over centralisation of power and it will effectively erode South Africa’s Constitution to such an extent that it will impede the freedom its citizens are enjoying currently. There will be less accountability by Government as central government will become extremely big and inaccessible. Local government, even though it might enjoy more powers, will just become even more derelict in service delivery as it will not be able to deal with the added responsibilities. It already struggles with its current mandate how will it deal with current provincial powers being devolved to it in future?
It seems as if, technically, Jacob Zuma was honest with HelenZille when he said that provinces will remain for the time being. However, I do not believe he was totally honest about the ANC’s plans for provinces once “for the time being” has expired. I still firmly believe that provinces are still very much in the firing line of the ANC government. The main argument will be that provinces are a “stone in the river” slowing down the flow of resources necessary for proper service delivery.
This argument does not hold water as the flow of resources can be accelerated through proper and capable management and management systems and procedures. The argument does inherently come down to an admission by the ANC that it is unable to govern provinces. An inherent admission that the ANC failed despite hailing their successes during every election campaign. The ANC does not seem able to manage within any type of system that is not centrally controlled (i.e. control freaking).
So, beware the debate about provinces are still a very hot issue and we should not become complacent based on “technically honest” assurances. We cannot go forward on assurances, what we need is a commitment from President Zuma that provinces should stay, we need a totally honest stance before we can become assured.

18 June 2009 - The Gautrain Visit!

Today I had quite an interesting experience. I visited one of the Gautrain sites. The Gautrain is a rapid rail link that will connect the OR Tambo Airport by rail to Sandton and on the north-south axis Johannesburg Park Station will be connected with Pretoria and Hatfield stations via Sandton. A ride between Johannesburg and Pretoria stations will be 35 minutes! Much better than the hour plus it takes on the highway nowadays. The Gautrain is the largest greenfields rail project in the world currently and will cost about R 30 billion. You can read more interesting facts about the train at www.gautrain.co.za.

The visit was very interesting and impressive. It started out at the Gautrain headquarters in Linbro Park where we received a safety induction. After the induction we were presented with a slide show about the project and its progress. According to the presenter they are ahead of their schedule to finish the rail link.

After the presentation and a number of questions we were issued with safety shoes, reflector jackets and hard hats and were put on a bus which headed to the Gautrain depot in Midrand. The depot is where the trains are stored, assembled, tested (each train must complete 3000 test hours before it can be commissioned) and maintained. Very well equipped. Currently the site also accommodates the concrete casting works for the viaduct parts. This part will be converted to a bus depot for the Gautrain buses.

After arriving at the depot we had another safety briefing (they are really very safety conscious) and were taken off to the stores where the trains are being kept. As you can see from the photographs we were able to inspect the trains close up and were explained how the driver controls work. Very high tech stuff. There were (obviously) opportunities for pictures and questions to the resident experts. All the while being watched closely by the security guards. Unfortunately we couldn’t get onto a moving train but did see them running up and down the test track. These trains achieve 160 km/h (they achieved this yesterday and today – the engineers are very chuffed!), really quick.

Also interesting are the track inspection vehicles. Three Land Rovers fitted with track wheels (small train wheels) that engage once they are on the track and then inspect the tracks to make sure the trains can use them safely. Good to know they are doing this because it would not be fun crashing in one of these trains at a 160 km/h!!

The trains run on electricity which they get from 25 KVA (25 000 volt!) overhead lines – it was made clear to us a number of times that should you touch the overhead wire, it will be the only time you will get to do it – you will end up a small heap of carbon if you do.
Well, enough about trains – check out my pics and the website for more interesting stuff.

NOW ABOUT MY WEEKEND AHEAD

If you thought us politicians do a weekday, daytime only job, think again. Yes, another weekend full of politics. Quite a significant one actually.

On Friday afternoon it is off to Cape Town where I will attend my last ADAC (Association of DA Councillors) National Council meeting (see www.adac.co.za for more info about ADAC). On Saturday my successor will be elected after I make a presentation about the ADAC strategy and our future training approach. I am really sad to leave ADAC as it has been such an enriching experience and probably one of the best positions you can ever occupy in politics. However, I am now an MPL and therefore have to move on as new challenges await me.

Soon after making my presentation on Saturday morning it is back to Gauteng and off to Kwa Ndaba where our caucus (DA Gauteng Provincial Caucus) will be having our first bosberaad (team building and strategy formulation meeting). On Sunday it is back home.

I am particularly also looking forward to Monday when I will have my first portfolio committee meeting. Come back on Monday evening or Tuesday to read more about what goes on in such a committee.

Enjoy your weekend! I hope I can catch the end of the Springboks vs. British and Irish Lions test. Go Bokke!!

5 May 2009 - The Mock Sitting

As I indicated yesterday, today we had our mock sitting. We basically sat in the auditorium got lectures on the basics of the rules of the house and the cute little touch screens that we use, once they work fully, for all kind of stuff.
The mock sitting ended with a run down of tomorrow's inauguration/ swearing in procedures. The nice thing about the mock sitting was that we were able to get used to our seats in the legislature. I am sitting between Mike Moriarty and Bev Abrahams and have Thomas Walters, Paul Willemburg, Solly Nkhi, Khumi Ramulifho, Neill Campbell and Gavin Lewis in close proximity - oh and off course chief whip Glenda Steyn! I already feel at home in the house and am looking forward to the first real debate.
Things are moving fast now. Today I got a parking space (with my name on it!), access card, office allocation as well as my portfolios. I will be spokesperson on local government (my first choice - yeah!) and deputy spokesperson on public transport, roads and stormwater (could have been worse!). I look forward to my exciting and challenging two portfolios and I think I will be having a lot of fun with them.
As I said tomorrow it is our formal swearing in (as Paul said today he loves swearing!) and after that we will hopefully get our programmes and start working proper.
I still have to deal with the admin around the medical aid transition and as well as my cellphone porting (i must choose a handset on Friday - these choices are killing me!).
Tomorrow will be the inauguration edition!!!