John Cupido, MPL at the Komani Psychiatric Hospital.

Recently the media released an expose that revealed the terrible conditions that patients in the Komani Psychiatric Hospital were expected to endure.

Patients were expected to sleep on filthy sponge mattresses directly on the floor in Queenstown of all places, with sub-zero temperatures during winter.   Patients were also expected to wear rags and in many cases virtually no clothes at all and were apparently subjected to minimal food or just a simple soup for the day.

In many societies the mentally handicapped are usually placed in a facility and almost forgotten about, so one can imagine that atrocities like this can go unseen for significant amounts of time. This is my main gripe with the Department of Health. There are officials employed to visit departmental facilities and to report on conditions found within. After the media exposed the conditions, a delegation was sent by the department and reported that they found nothing wrong. Only when the MEC visited himself did the truth come out.

Loos stand abandoned in a field outside Dutywa

Dutywa’s Govan Mbeki village consists of a field of 200 toilets without a single house being built. The site is a playground for vandals. The Mbashe Municipality claims the money was “used for something else” and the contractor is long-gone. Oom Gov would have been shocked.

The frustration for a shack dweller to see the toilets being vandalised and their hopes for proper housing being dashed by empty promises is dehumanising.

I have written to the MEC for Local Government, Mlibo Qoboshiye, and to the MEC for Human Settlements, Helen Sauls-August, to find out what happened to the funding for this project and whether any steps will be taken against officials from the Mbashe Municipality and the contractor, who should be blacklisted if found guilty.

The MEC’s plan to establish a monitoring group to hold mayors accountable for poor service delivery is a step in the right direction. But one can only hope that this is not too little too late in a province where so much money has been wasted in corrupt and fruitless expenditure.

The Eastern Cape recorded the highest level of irregular expenditure in the past financial year amounting to R2,7-Billion. It is particularly frustrating considering that the Eastern Cape had R500-million of its municipal infrastructure grant withdrawn by the national Treasury, because the province failed to spend the money.

People of this province do not have to put up with this. People need not live in shacks, get water from a standpipe and use buckets.

The DA believes in accountable government to delivery service to all the people. This cannot be achieved if the ruling party does not take action against lazy officials and irresponsible contractors.

The DA believes that people should be instilled with a sense of pride and respect for themselves and for property by encouraging self-reliance and ensuring that people do not remain passive and powerless recipients of government handouts.

The DA and the Eastern Cape Legislature community as a whole is immensely proud of and inspired by Zolani Bakawuli, who after 14 years of dedicated and very hard work became a DA councillor in the Buffalo City Metro after the recent municipal elections. Cllr Bakawuli had been working as the service officer for the DA in the legislature. The party held a farewell function for him on 27 June. From left to right are: DA Eastern Cape Provincial Leader Athol Trollip, cllr Zolani Bakawuli, MPL John Cupido, Legislature Leader Bobby Stevenson, MPL Dacre Haddon and MPL Edmund van Vuuren

Accountability lies at the heart of both the province’s problems and solutions. At the start of a newly elected term for local government this value needs to be foremost on our minds. Accountable government means that we are committed to improving service delivery and the optimal utilization of resources. It’s about having a work- and service ethic where the people come first and the politicians and political parties come second. Until this spirit is truly engendered in our civil service and in the minds of politicians the people of this province will continue to suffer.

So what needs to be done:

DA Legislature leader and Eastern Cape spokesperson on finance, Bobby Stevenson

Speaking in the provincial legislature last week, Bobby Stevenson DA Legislature Leader and Spokesperson on Finance outlined reasons why the DA was not prepared to support the 2011/12 provincial budget:

The DA has a number of concerns in relation to this budget of R52, 643 billion which brings into being the credibility of some of the figures before us.

Let’s start with the big one first – education. It is highly questionable whether Education will be able to come out on its budget of R24,634 billion. Education has the following problems :

DA provincial spokesperson on education Edmund van Vuuren visited the Willowmore Primary School recently. At the back from the left is the principal, Mr. Hendricks, Nelson Mandela Bay Metro councillor Jonathan Lawack, Edmund van Vuuren and Metro councillor Marshall von Buchenroder

Following the last round of schools visits and the discussion thereof in the Legislature last week the DA stated that reports were gathering dust regardless of resolutions and recommendations made by the House.

In his speech DA provincial spokesperson for education Edmund van Vuuren said: “We have been visiting schools throughout the province for the last couple of years. We have interrogated department officials, we have spoken to school principals and school governing bodies as well as other stakeholders. We have compiled reports and we have deliberated those reports in the House.

“The problem is that the issues that need to be addressed are similar to previous reports.