Premier Oscar Mabuyane and his Executive have made it abundantly clear that the ANC only pays lip service to taking a stance on state capture and corruption. When it comes to taking action, there is simply no political will to deal with those abusing state resources for personal gain.
Acting Premier Siphokazi Lusithi informed the Eastern Cape Legislature during the plenary sitting today that the Premier has no intention of forming a provincial commission of inquiry, requested by the Democratic Alliance, to investigate the state capture and corruption in Nelson Mandela Bay.
Lusithi stood in for Premier Mabuyane, who was in Pretoria to meet with President Cyril Ramaphosa.
While the Premier refuses to take action, the people of Nelson Mandela Bay are watching their city being stripped to the bone by corrupt cadres intent on lining their own pockets at the cost of service delivery.
The Metro is the economic hub of the province and we need to pull out all stops to ensure investors have a corruption-free environment If the Premier was serious about fighting corruption in all its forms, he would be using all the tools at his disposal, including this commission of inquiry.
In responding to my member’s statement in the House this afternoon, calling for the premier to take action, COGTA MEC, Zolile Williams, said he had discussed the matter in depth with Premier Mabuyane. He said they had concluded that the commission would be too expensive to conduct and that various state entities were already investigating corruption in the city.
However, these investigations are being conducted in isolation, and do not address the core issue of state capture of the city. When one takes into consideration the R20 billion in Unauthorised, Irregular, Fruitless and Wasteful Expenditure in terms of the Annual Financial Statements, whatever the cost of the inquiry would be a drop in the ocean of what has already been lost.
MEC Williams also intimated that his department would investigate the allegations relating to the Expanded Public Works Programme funding abuse. The question one has to ask is why they have not already done so.
The DA will not leave it there. We will now be writing to the National Minister of COGTA, Thembi Nkadimeng, to request her intervention into the abuses that are taking place in Nelson Mandela Bay.
We cannot put a price on doing the right thing. We cannot allow the people of Nelson Mandela Bay to suffer at the hands of the corrupt. We will continue to fight against this cabal that has infiltrated our municipality and ensure they are brought to justice.
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