Premier Oscar Mabuyane’s announcement of a new “crack team” today reveals a provincial government in full panic mode. He is merely shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic as a smokescreen to hide a collapsing administration.

According to the Premier, the team is meant to scale up the implementation of government commitments in the critical areas that have been identified as lagging in monitoring and evaluation processes.

The truth is that his Executive Members and their Heads of Department have failed to deal effectively with the challenges in these departments.

The Premier appears to be following the same strategy as President Cyril Ramaphosa, in centralising control, as he is scared and unable to hold his MECs accountable.

Premier Mabuyane’s “crack team” has been drawn from departments where there are already huge fault lines that they could not fix while at the helm.

No amount of window dressing can hide the fact that this is a collapsing administration.

Only a new DA government can rescue this province from the abyss of despair.

ENGLISH